The M4s came into this game on the back of a win against one of Division 5NW’s top teams last week (March) and were looking for another. Which is something that we maybe/possibly/probably should have gained…but didn’t in the end.

The match took place at one of Peterborough’s secondary pitches, which makes sense for a 6^th vs 4^th XI game but with both clubs’ Fixture Secretaries playing, maybe… Anyway, the Queen Katherine it was, with South quickly figuring out that the surface was rather slow and dead.

Despite that we started on the front foot and had much the better of the opening ten minutes in terms of territory and possession. JJ sent a drag flick wide from a corner as we probed for an opening goal. Then it came. To Peterborough. Their first serious attack won a shortie, which was crisply fired into the bottom corner by one of their talented teenagers.

Dang. Heads dropped briefly, but after a poor five minutes we got going again. Another corner was won and flicked goalwards by JJ. This hit a defender’s body, but then looped to the far post where Jamie was waiting. The ump played advantage (good call) but Jamie’s attempted reverse stick volley finish skewed across the empty net and wide for a sixteen. Dang again.

South kept up the pressure for most of the rest of the first half, with only rare breakouts from Peterborough. On one of these the goalscorer ran at Jan. He jinked left. Jan covered. He jinked right. Jan slowly collapsed to the turf like an old oak creeking over and got a worm’s eye view of Michael snuffing out the Peterborough attack. And also the Lemon award later in the afternoon.

The second half followed a similar pattern. South dominated territory, possession, circle penetrations and outcomes. But the ball either just wouldn’t sit right, or the Peterborough keeper made good saves. The pressure drew our defence forward, resulting in a sucker punch. A ball out made for a two-on-two, which became a two-on-one following a dive-in. Michael slowed the first forward up when he got into the circle, but the ball was then collected by the second player who only had a defender on the line to fire past. Two-nil. A score that bore little resemblance to the game it purported to represent.

We could have folded at this point. The good news is that the opposite happened. Within five minutes of the goal we were back in it. A penalty corner was smothered, but only half-cleared. Panos got around the defence to the byline, drove across and pulled the ball back to the spot. Cue a goalmouth scramble that was eventually finished by Tom on his back stick from range. Said ‘range’ being several millimetres, possibly as much as a centimetre. Scruffy, but they all count.

And with that Peterborough got flustered. We pressed, they defended, they cleared, we intercepted. In the last fifteen minutes the ball barely left the home side’s half, and was sometimes stuck in their twenty-three. The Peterborough coach was getting frustrated, shouting, “Stop passing to them!” to his team. What would our coach have said, had we had one? Possibly cooler heads in the circle. Chances came and went begging. The two that stand out in my mind were an opportunity for Pash when he had the ball on his stick on the penalty spot and unchallenged, with just the keeper to beat. He wound up, but the shot flashed just wide. Another from Nev attempted to thread the needle from around the same range, but with more bodies in the way. Same outcome, just wide. There was also a double save from their stopper to deny Tom and Ollie when a goal seemed certain.

But no equaliser was forthcoming. If anyone had been keeping statistics, we would have dominated every category but one. And only one actually matters. Frustration abounds, but this match once again shows the M4s can compete with, indeed arguably outplay, the strongest sides in this division. Today just wasn’t our day.