I wish I could tell you more about the first 10 minutes of the game, but unfortunately I was still somewhere between my physio in St Ives and the Newmarket pitch at that point… Essentially I arrived & no one had scored. Good, good. Tara & Erin on the side reported it was quite an even game so far. Feeling a little guilty about my late arrival, I was frantically tearing through my kit bag to be ready to go relieve the defenders on the pitch; sensing I might be having a scatty day, I did a quick run-through with Erin; "Gum shield, face-mask, glove, stick… am I missing anything?" Nothing noted as missing… Did you spot what was?

What seemed like the longest 5 minutes-ever followed where Newmarket were firmly camped out in our defensive 25/half. Katie was all-over the place like some kind of demon mopping up their attempted forays into our D, eventually a clearance from Ginny allowed us to break off up the wing via the ever speedy Kath, & I got on to relieve Anne. About 5 mins later it dawned on me what was missing… (never mind - my own stupid fault; crack on to half-time)… The first half remained a fairly even game, with opportunities at both ends & the most petrifying defensive short corner I've run out on, without any shinpads on… Fortunately I managed to evade the ball & any Newmarket sticks making contact with my unfilled socks, but Katie did an excellent job with her stick of reminding me why shinpads are essential pieces of hockey kit! From mid-way through this half, there was a subtle feeling of a shift in momentum in South's favour, with the linking working and even hints of switching round the back for Bethan out on the right mid to connect up our ball hungry forwards. Nice to see so quickly after the lockdown interlude.

Half-time team talk involved laughing at me hastily putting my shinpads back where they belong & discussions of the momentum change in our favour; Keep up the good work, Keep talking to each other & a cautionary note from Anne to be ready for Newmarket to come back out hard at us, as they had in previous encounters.

Relentless work in mid-field from Hannah and Soph, saw more opportunities on Newmarket's goal for us. One such string saw a ball scorch across from the left to the middle of the pitch between the halfway & 25, which Tess swooped in from the right to pick from in front of the Newmarket defender & carry into the top right of the D; here it was crossed to the waiting Kath just off the left baseline, who pinging it across the keeper behind most of the defence to near Erin on the right post. Unfortunately it found a foot not a stick to the open goal… Sad times… but beautiful play, hinting something was coming…

But Newmarket were also keen to keep Sammy and Anne busy trying to find a wide route into our defensive D. In the same line of thought they were also convinced due to my lack of speed that my running reverse stick was a great place to feed balls through; I got lots of practice picking on the reverse to their disgust. They also, like many of our opposition earlier in the season, seemed to take special objection to the combination of Tara's incredibly, handy sticks skills and ridiculously long legs, so after failing to find the ball due to the former took to taking out the latter, repeatedly… Tara confirmed afterwards that their pitch is very sandy & wet after the week's earlier snow. She was well qualified to comment by this point! But also won us a delightful number of free hits for her pains!

Newmarket had their own taste of potential too, where a breakaway forward driving into the D, was fouled by our defender, resulting in the whistle blowing for a short, and everyone but the forward stopped playing, who had by that point slotted it past Lydia. Umpire: Sorry, No goal & take the short. Between Anne's clearances and Katie's determination (in spite of getting the ball lifted into her own eye) the following challenges was quashed.

Thus allowing us to revert the pressure back to the other end, where we start getting lots of long & short corner practice. Our ever goal hungry captain, Emily, was on scorching form with her strikes, but sadly so too was Newmarket's keeper making some great saves. But luckily for us one such cracking strike from Ems, got a helpful little tap from POM Soph to evade the keeper & find the backboards! YAY!!! 1-0 South! Celebrations - may have hampered the post goal quality of the 'Gram video contribution Tess was capturing…

We knew there couldn't be long left. CAMP!!! Apparently Newmarket had figured that out too & found a renewed zeal! Good job we had Lydia between the posts today - who was kept very busy denying them any retaliation goal. Obviously everyone's stress levels hadn't been tested enough, as we had to finish the final whistle of the game as we were setting up to defend an Newmarket attacking short! Kath got very excited on the sideline, squat bellowing: JUST. CLEAR. IT!!! Ginny at least got the memo, sending it off the back but sufficiently wide to not be deemed intentional… The Final-Final-whistle blew & we all stopped holding our breath & got very excited! We'd held out for our first 3 points since the 3rd of October!

It was a well-matched game to come back on and even better to come out with those all important 3 points from after some excellent play by all the team! Rocking up 10 mins post-pushback & forgetting to put on my shins pads deservedly secured me lemon, over Emily shirt-colour email debacle. Votes for POM held greater variety; with Erin & Lydia with one a piece; Tara & Hanna with 2 each, however Soph reigned supreme with 3 votes for her overall play & that critical GOAL!

Bring on next week…(assuming the gamble of moving my physio appointment to before this game & essay writing at max speed allows enough time to play in the St Neots game…) NB getting LOM + match report writing duties hasn't exactly helped the latter