No team ever plans on taking eleven players to a game of hockey, but alas, injuries and mishaps currently plague the Cambridge South ranks across the board. We considered approaching the game with a degree of self-preservation lest we accidentally add to the tally of the fallen, but decided against starting with a defensive half court press as we recognised that this would only invite pressure.

The tactic was clear – let the ball do the work, and slow it down where we could.

Sadly, this was taken to heart too much by Shin when his leading run towards the penalty spot was found by Pearson. Without any sign of the defence and just the keeper to beat, he decided to dance with the ball as he was caught in two minds, eventually passing at the keeper's right foot, who subsequently cleared it convincingly. Next time, buddy.

Moving on, we played a solid first half. We played our best hockey down the middle, often struggling to connect the line balls due to a well drilled opposition defence.

We had our chances mostly through short corners, without too much from open play. Five or six in total. Clearly, our conversion rate has to improve. We defended stoutly, and on the rare occasion that our defenders were bettered, Jason came to the rescue in stylish fashion to keep the score nil-nil for the half time team talk.

There was positive talk, ambitious and inspiring. The spirit of the team was one of belief. The way this report is going, you'd think we had won the game in the end, but sadly we lost two-nil. Their first goal came midway through the second half, through a short corner which was drag flicked to the right post. It hit Stu's arm and went in, despite his best efforts to bat it out. We conceded the second goal very late on, as we pushed up trying to get the equaliser, as so often happens when one gambles.

Other highlights include Stu stopping a shot on the line with what appeared to be a trailing arm on one other occasion, but this time, stopped the ball from crossing the line, whilst a very similar incident happened in the opponents' goal where a shot looked as if it was stopped by the thigh of a defender on the line. Neither was given as a flick, nor even a short. Fair play to the umpires for being consistent!

Mariano took a shot to the chest but just shrugged it off, as he is a mountain of a man and it turned out we needed a new ball as the old ball was damaged by hitting his chiselled chest. This paragraph may or may not be true, but the essence is there.

Tom's defending hit a new high as he controlled the ball out of defence, under pressure from two attackers who then ended up running in to each other and lay sprawled as Tom carried the ball out to the twenty-three, victorious.

Towards the end of the game, some had run more than others, with Oli amassing an outstanding 19,000 steps according to his fitbit, but one and all had put in a body-breaking shift, which was very commendable. It is all too easy to speculate on whether having a substitute or two would have made the difference, but it means nothing. On the day we lost, and we look to the next game for the win.