As the cshc_l4s insta sneak-peaked Mo started the drama before we’d even set foot on the pitch! Shree had led us all off on a warmup down the side of the car park to the grass beyond the pitch. Only Mo fell at the final raised curb crossing, crashing down on landing into the tarmac parking spot (full length navy puffa billowing like a cape behind her as she fell – it was positively majestic!). The odd tear, less some skin and a bit of blood loss, Mo was patched back together with her brave red panda plaster covering the smaller graze and the on-pitch warm up could begin. As we were getting our final words of wisdom from Shree, Becky W deigned to arrive and was hastily getting shin pads on, in time to join our 3-2-1- SOUUUTH huddle!!! This almost earnt her LOM… Having joked with South hockey friends Friday night before about could even Mr.-Positivity-Jan back us for a miraculous win against our tricky opposition for today, I had since read the preview, discovering even he had pitched today as “a damage-limitation exercise” … He had graciously omitted to mention the 8 goals to nil they put past us nearer the start of the season. 

Well! YE OF LITTLE FAITH! Only 3 minutes into the game, South 4s shocked everyone, demonstrating we could do a whole lot more than damage-limitation – off a break or a steal, Becky W sent a lovely diagonal ball up to Emily, who rapidly carried the ball clear of her chasing defender to be one-on-one with the keeper and calmly popped the ball away - 1-0 to South! Our oppositions’ faces suggested they were not exactly expecting to find themselves 0-1 down to 10th in the table, so fast. The game continued quite evenly contested for a reasonable time, but during some heavy pressure in our defensive dee, poor Nicole manged to deflect one of their strikes right into our goal beyond the reaches of Selene’s kickers. 1—1. We were not overly perturbed by this, but unfortunately it seemed to do wonders for our opposition’s nerves. And so, the defensive shorts began… We held strong for some time, but they mixed it up more, their second coming off a routine more akin to a pin-ball machine around the upper two-thirds of the dee, which eventually went in. *Spoiler alert* this would be their only successful short. Several more followed. I at least among the defenders was extremely relieved the opposition drag-flicker I recalled from our previous encounter seemed unavailable this week, so my knees might survive undamaged...? Getting little joy from penalty corners their very rapid, youthful forwards did manage to get a third past us from open play instead. Half-time score 3-1, but by no means out of contention, and so much better than our last encounter!

In similar fashion to the first half, but not quite as quickly, it was South who reopened the scoring with a textbook, silky smooth attacking short corner routine (Izzy & Ed you may now glow with pride) Becky W injected out to Amelia, who swept it at the far-right post where Mo fought out a deflecting touch in amid 2 or 3 defenders. So slick, you barely heard the ball touching sticks from the far end of the pitch. We might not have won quite as many shorts as the Dragons did, but our conversion rate was about 20-25% which is pretty good for us. Attempting to slow down another rapid break, which would have been a one-on-one with the keeper, Shree’s tackle from the reverse unfortunately gave away a penalty-stroke. Cool as a cucumber, Selene stepped and saved the low and slightly lifted ball to her right. In almost any other game, a stroke saved in addition to all the other fantastic saves she made would have been enough to secure her POM, but not in this game… The remainder of the game from a defensive perspective was mainly viewed from behind my short corner mask, through varying degrees of steaminess. Julie commenting hers barely had the chance to clear in between uses. I suspect it was somewhere between 15-20, but it felt more like 100’s! But the South back line proved resolutely solid and impenetrable at short corners. Somehow in addition to being up supporting our attacks as a screen, Shree continued to run one on all of these more often than not thwarting their first striker with the speed she came out with. Annoyingly they did manage to get a fourth past us from open play that went all around the dee in numerous phases, including several saves, then some-how touched by one of their players to trickle over the line in a very undramatic finish. Flamboyant or otherwise, goals are goals, so the final score was 4-2. 3 points well deserved by our opponents but a performance we were incredibly proud of from South. The only fourth 11 side in a league of first and second teams, we are very much striving to be the David among Goliaths.

In a rather nice post-game conversation with two of our opposition, they observed we had given them one of their better, more evenly contested games, and that all our defence was very solid, with all of us being very good staying low. I advised they had been spared the best of our low-and-solid defenders, as she out with a hamstring injury this weekend, before relaying the complements back to all there today. POM votes were hotly contested, with Katie’s efforts coming back as an inner to steal balls back and her passing contributions to our attacking flurries earning her 4 votes, Selene’s heroics between the posts, including the stroke-save also earning her 4 votes, but our winner was Shree’s relentless one-running and blocks on the defensive shorts! LOM votes were just as hotly contested between Mo’s dramatic fall, Becky’s tardy arrival, but both worthy winners were pipped by Emily’s indigent interaction with the umpire, who was repeatedly shouting at “number 199”, and her outcry – “we’re in away kit I don’t know my number!” A criminal offence apparently. Our opposition wishes us well, as we departed on aiming to end up finishing in the mid-table position they confirmed they considered us to be worthy of, while they chase their promotion aspirations.