The L4’s, after looking quite sparse on numbers earlier in the week, were quietly optimistic seeing the four subs listed Friday night on the Spond formation plan (many thanks L5’s), but by pushback this had diminished back to the usual three… Before pushback we had discussed how close the first away game had been, with all their goals coming from set pieces, but ours had been a trademark open play one. We knew their attacking shorts were good, try not to give too many away and we could hold our own elsewhere. Excellent plan.

This plan lasted all of 5mins 57 seconds… They won a short and efficiently put it away. The play was by no means all theirs, preceding this or afterwards, with some great driving runs from Ella and Louisa in midfield. On one such promising venture is South attacking play, a turnover, resulted in a ball being lifted at speed into the side of poor Naomi’s face, ending her game for the day :( . In some of the mild confusion following the restart from the stoppage St Ives broke quickly and put in an open field goal. 11mins in, 0-2 down, and no forward sub left, we steadied ourselves and started playing our hockey, with Hannah and Katy in midfield working in some triangles and even a few switches around via Nicole, Shree our wing backs, and Laurie at Centre back. The balls started getting through to the super speedy Cat and the waiting Nicky up front. Breaking back off a 16, which went out wide, then connected via a lovely driving run from Avi in mid, found it’s way from top D to Mo driving at the post, putting in a great team goal, making it 1-2 less than 5 minutes before half time. We felt very much back in the game and to have reasserted our mojo.

Selene’s admirable half time sweets and orange segments were gratefully received, and we discussed our opportunities and dwindling numbers, as pre-game niggles had already started to evidence their impact in the first half on a few of our number. We were only 1 goal down and playing much better now, we could go back out there and take some points out of this.

Now not playing into the (delightful, although increasingly rather warm) sun for the second half, we went straight back out as instructed and 6:27 mins in Katy managed to slam home an attacking short slip with flourish. 2 all – back in this. This goal along with the gratuitous volume of legwork she put in across the pitch would eventually earn her out POM. The next event would define our LOM and inspire this report’s title. Louisa had over-committed herself at half time and required a hasty sub. This might have been excused, had she not generously reminded us all while we were trying to think of LOM’s after the game… St Ives were not pleased by the equaliser situation and rallied. During one such resurgence a lifted ball narrowly missed Hannah’s head. More stoppage time for our long-suffering umpire team (thanks Rebecca and Kev). We were now down to 1 sub across the whole team. South quite concerned Hannah might have taken another ball to the head, shortly conceded another defensive short. A cracking straight strike made it 2-3 just over 9mins into the second half. Their goal quest persisted in its intensity, with another short conceded just over 2 minutes later. Our defence, the line deemed not to need a sub under our depleted numbers, continued to resist the ensuing onslaught, Rebecca sacrificing her knees for the cause and Selene making lots of great saves. We had had enough of conceding these shorts and started to get used to their well drilled routines. We started to turn the tides back into South’s faster attacking breaks from 16s return the pressure to the opposite end of the pitch. This apparently started to bring out a high number of stick tackles from our opposition. A particularly egregious one, earning one of their players a green, who (along with several of her team) was vocal in their dissent of, only upgrading herself to a yellow. We tried admirably to capitalise on our numerical advantage, unfortunately not quite manifesting into any more goals… The final whistle went. 2-4 not in our favour, in another closely contested game, in which a late arriving spectator was surprised to discover we had not won based on what they had watched.

Whilst Louisa nearly took a unanimous clean sweep in the LOM title, with only a single vote for the late arrival of the usually punctual Cat, not going her way, our POM selection was wider spread. Mo’s goal earning her one, Shree’s defensive wing work earning her one, Ella’s steals and driving runs in midfield earning her three votes, only just pipped by Katy’s four votes, who as well as her equalising  goal, had played a vital role at top of the diamond connecting the defence and midfield in the first half, continuing similarly in the second half after promotion into the centre of our diminishing midfield line.