The last meeting of the two sides had been a close and feisty affair, with a last-minute equaliser that the opposition were definitely not happy about. Pre-match chat revolved around definitely shaking that one guy’s hand, and looking out for the strong shoulder-to-shoulder tackling present in the previous game. Paul was also on hand to coach from the side line and keep subs running smoothly.

South opened strongly from push-back, with an attempt on goal in the first minute. Chris opened the proceedings with a ball to Joel, who switched to Stu on the right for a long ball to Ollie on the wing. He drove forward and crossed to Jim, positioned well for a touch in the D. The defence closed him down, but we were looking set to play our own game and work hard.

The game continued well, with South having the majority of the possession. Stu was trying a new formation, with only two high/wide forwards and a player in the middle behind them. Within the first five minutes this paid off, as Chris in this middle spot beat two players in their D and slipped right to Ollie on the post, who reverse-swept the ball over the keeper’s outstretched glove into the side netting. One-nil South!

Brentwood came back hard, launching counter-attacks with aerial balls from their back line, and eventually fell foul of a poorly-judged tackle outside the D. Maybe they’d taken notes from our last meeting, as their short corner routine was a carbon copy of our previous opener, with a nice drag-flick into the top-left netting and little Jason could do about it.

South continued to apply pressure, with several searching balls into the D from Paresh and Mariano not quite getting the final touch on the post. However, Mike broke down one of their counter-attacks in the midfield and drove hard. Jim and Ollie both pulled defenders wide and Brentwood declined to tackle Mike, so he continued his run and smashed the ball into the corner of the goal to make it two-one.

Brentwood definitely weren’t feeling beaten, and kept up the intensity. Before long, an attack down our left wing was broken up, but not cleanly enough to prevent a short corner. Once again, they converted well, with a hard drag into the bottom-right corner to make it two-two. South kept up the pressure through to half-time, but a few minutes before the whistle, Ollie went in for a tackle and rolled an ankle, leaving him to hobble off for the break.

We restarted with a sense of purpose – the game was winnable, and we’d held possession well. Rosselli was stopping everything that came his way, and feeding back in to Mark and Joel, or wide to Aston to put some pace up the left wing, finding Jack in space. South soon won a short corner and opted for the Harry Chalk special – firing in to the P-spot for a deflection into the corner. Three-two!

However, Brentwood kept pushing back and soon found themselves with another short corner. This one wasn’t a drag-flick, but switched to the post, and Stu’s stop with his body gave them a penalty flick to bring them back to even.

Brentwood started to show more of their physicality from the previous game and won several cards, including a yellow for a particularly loud stick tackle. Surprisingly, hearing that the ball had moved during the tackle didn’t sway the umpire. Not to be outdone, Harry soon found himself green-carded for a rugby tackle.

With five minutes to go, another offence in the D gave South a short. We tried another training-ground routine, described by Colin via video feed from Tignes as:

1. Mike to take ball to short corner spot

2. Place ball on corner spot

3. Downward Dog™

4. Wait for umpire

5. Inject ball and wait for Wizard to do his wizardry

(Otherwise described as a nice flat drag from Pearson to Ollie on the right post to make it four-three!) This time, South weren’t going to give them time to even the score, with Owen ably holding the ball in Brentwood’s far corner to run down the clock.

All in all, a good first outing of 2018 (not counting the sixty mile round-trip to the services for the aborted Wapping match last week), with many positive signs for the rest of the season. Teas were enhanced by a drop-in from Craig, and Jim reminiscing about his hat-trick after spotting his photo in the trophy cabinet.