What a game. The emotions, both euphoric and unendurable, all in the space of seventy minutes. As always, the pitch at the Abbey was a bad omen: even the ball refuses to move quickly on such a repugnant surface. The far corner of the pitch sloping away was simply a prodrome of our performance.

In the inauspicious October sun, we aimed to play our now-accustomed brand of high intensity hockey, and whilst we started brightly, we conceded a short corner against the run of play and found ourselves one goal down after a very well taken drag flick in off the crossbar. We had several chances to level it, but it was Nomads who scored the second goal, again from a messy short corner to which they reacted fastest.

At 2-0 down, we found ourselves playing better hockey, not wishing to give the league leaders an easy game. On one of our several flowing attacks, Mikey picked up the ball and passed it to James on the twenty-three, who neatly swivelled, eliminating three players, entered the top of the D, and proceeded to reverse strike the ball against the right bottom sideboard inside the goal. It was as if the curse had been lifted, as the favour was upon us. With the wind in our sails, we won another short corner – and as we all know, our short corner conversion rate must improve to be competitive.

Knowing that the pitch was slow, James injected the ball by slapping it rather than pushing it, to Joel who expertly stopped the ball dead, top D, just outside, as practised. Shin stepped up to take his first drag flick of the season and converted it, going between the keeper's stick and the defender. Having broke his duck for the season, the team statistician (Harry C) has mentioned that he himself is now the only non-defender yet to register a goal. We do not expect this to last, considering our virile goal scoring form of late.

At two-a-piece, it was fever pitch. Both teams knew that the winning team would end the week on top of the league. With South pressure mounting, rued chances at either end came and went. But in the last ten minutes, Nomads attacked down the right with a long ball to their forward, who magically stopped the ball with his stick…and proceeded to cross the ball in for another scrambled melee goal.

At three-two down, we pressed and pressed but time was against us. Some would say that we were wasting our own time.

On reflection, it was a passionate display by both teams, and whilst discipline was lacking, there was a distinct atmosphere where we were embroiled in a situation of heterogeneous consistency in decision making.

Both teams had plenty of cards, and we certainly will work to remedy this side of our game as well as our hockey.

Man of the match went to Shin for his goal celebration, and Lemon went to James for spending twelve minutes off the pitch in the bad boy corner.

Other notable mentions:

• Dave Aston - green carded: mistaken identity? Unlikely.

• Joel - green carded when it was our short corner.

• James - green and yellow: “You're wasting your own time, mate”.

• Harry C - voting irregularities