Cambridge South 2nds' promotion hopes suffered a setback, losing 3-1 to March Town 3rd XI in an evenly matched game in which South performed well below their normal standard, showing only very occasional glimpses of class.

Slow out of the blocks, the home side seemed to have weathered an opening period where March had most of the play in the South half but then disaster struck. The skilful March captain played an innocuous ball in from the attacking right side, South’s defence had the ball covered but, with a loud call of "MINE!", Lino swung at it with his right foot…and missed! The ball dribbled slowly goalwards and the oncoming March attacked had the simplest of tap-ins – one-nil to the away team!

After this, South did start playing some more intelligent hockey but time and again it was a case of players holding on to the ball for too long, allowing the March defence to organise themselves and snuff out any half chances. The middle of the park was very open and March were having no problem breaking away from defence, generally opting to use their right hand side. It was from this flank that the second goal came; the March captain picked up the ball inside South's half and surged into the D. Lino came out to close him down but, with a lovely touch, the attacker simply lifted the ball high over Lino’s head and it looped down into the goal – two-nil!

Now came South’s best period of the game, the midfield combined well and March had no answer to the pass-and-move tactics. The match was still winnable and the home side clawed one back after a good surging move left Dave Aston free at the top of the D. He took his time (and plenty of it!) and smashed a viciously lifting ball into the top left hand corner of the goal – two-one and anyone’s game!

Sadly, South could not maintain this standard. Shortly after the restart the ball was wastefully given away inside the March half and the mistake was punished emphatically. The March player made a superbly weighted pass all the way into the home D into the path of the March captain (again). The shot was stopped by a defender…who then simply "passed" it back to another March attacker to score.

After half time the game continued in similar fashion, South never hitting any sort of form and March keeping a good defence, well able to cope with the slow ball from midfield to the forwards. Honourable mentions go to Nick Bristowe and Dave Aston, whose work rate and intelligent movement mean that both have reason to hold their heads high at the end of the game but the rest of the team just failed to hit top gear for any sustained period.

After the game captain George Wych said, "It was a disappointing result but the season is by no means all over – there will be slip ups by the other top teams and if we can regain our early season form we will still be in the mix at the end of the campaign."