After reading Jan's promising preview, the L4s headed all the way up to play Bourne Deeping feeling anxious but hopeful.

The perfect sunny weather to play hockey met us there - but would we return victorious?

We started off cautiously, getting an understanding of how our opposition played and not diving in immediately. After about 10 minutes however, Connie set the tone of the rest of the game by striking the ball into goal off the post during a short. We were off!

A lot of attacking play then followed - several more short corners given by Bourne Deeping stick tackles. And then our first p flick of the season, lifted excellently into the top corner by Charlotte M.

2 more goals then followed in quick succession - a second for Connie, then back to the middle for Charlotte's pushback for her to immediately turn around, get past several defenders and score her second!

Nicole then decided that she needed to argue with the umpire - insisting that it should be our ball as it had hit a Bourne foot. All perfectly acceptable, [Ed - hmmm, not sure arguing with the Umpire is perfectly acceptable...] until you realised that the umpire was actually agreeing with Nicole, and had been the whole time, telling her to take the free hit! This obviously won her LOM. [Ed - ha ha ha ha ha... D'Oh!]

Some more lovely play from our forwards (Lily, Cat, and Naomi on the wings) scored us another 2 goals before half time, bringing the score to a comfortable 6-0.

As the second half started, clearly Bourne Deeping had had a pep talk, as it was much more even play. We also started slightly less awake, with Naomi realising after the starting whistle that she was on the wrong side of the pitch and we had 2 left forwards! (Yes she also got some LOM votes for this)

More defensive play in this half - very successful hit outs from Rosie and saves from Selene (on her L4s debut!) and presses (thanks again Izzy and Ed for a great training session). Daisy deftly channelled their strongest player down the wing several times, tackling at exactly the right moment.

We used the pass back and pivot to move the ball around - me, Nicole and Daisy forming a successful paasing chain, which worked really well - with our mids Hannah, Claudia and Katy in great positions to receive.

The second half was won by us 3-1, with Bourne Deeping getting a goal from a short corner, with a textbook strike from the top of the D.

POM went to me in defense, closely followed in votes by Charlotte for her many goals.

The victory was sealed by some chicken and chips in a lovely pub in helpston (with a few veggie sausages evenly distributed to several people!)

(Also apologies to any goals/goal scorers I forgot - there were a few!)