The M6s first match of the 2024 season was a lot of fun. A mixture of both old and new faces came together to try to remember how hockey works after the long break.
 
 We knew this would be a tough game even at our best, as the Newmarket team plays a division above us in the league. That just makes us the underdog though, which is the easier way to have it. The real aim was to get back into shape and get used to playing with one another, ready to get the ball in the goal when it really matters in a few weeks.
 
 The first half began with great enthusiasm. Although the Newmarket team pressed strongly, we got the ball up into their D more than once, and even into the net at one point (although unfortunately just after a whistle...). As expected they knew their stuff though, and by the end of the half Newmarket were 2-0 up - both scrappy affairs but taken from a better selection of chances than we achieved ourselves.
 
Regrouping at half time we set out to make some specific improvements in the second half, especially around passing the ball around the back of the field and keeping formation and communication around the D. We broadly did achieve what we wanted, but other factors weighed more heavily: we had 0 subs to Newmarket's 3, and for a while were down to 10 players due to an injury sustained during the first half. It became increasingly hard to keep up and by full time we'd conceded 4 more times in return for none of our own, despite some chances.

Overall though, it was a great first game back with a lot of enjoyable enthusiastic play that will surely take us somewhere if we keep it up. We'll look forward to trying to get a win back against Newmarket's 4th team when we play in the league in a few weeks.

Special credit to Miles with some excellent positional and anticipatory play intercepting the long passes that were our opponents' favourite tactic, earning him MoM. James H also deserves a shout for an excellent call and long run into space that caught everyone's eye as something worth copying.

Minor final note: Nobody can remember exactly what the final score was. Some people claim 5, I'm sure it was at least 6, maybe it was slightly more...