And so once again, 12 members the venerable 5th team took to the green 'astro turf' field of our friendly rivals from Royston hockey club.

An apparent 11:30 start seemed reasonable until the sun burnt off all the excess cloud revealing quite a scorchingly hot day.

After various members of the team had to consult the local greenery to relieve some much aligned stress, the game was on. 

South appeared to start as the better team playing a high aggressive formation, preventing Royston from leaving their half. 

Some good early decisive play from Danny Jackson and Jude caught the Royston defence napping, with a couple of near misses which could have led to a very early goal from South. 

Due to the heat the umpire's decided to play four quarters and after the first quarter South were potentially looking the more dangerous team. 

Royston recovered from their initial shock and began playing aerial balls into the middle of the pitch to overcome the high press from South. George Betts, James Mansell and Danny Image-Flower rotated through the middle, working well to comfortably deny Royston effective passing to their forwards. 

A couple of breakdowns led to a swift counter attack by South releasing Danny Jackson and Jude again, with Danny Image-Flower having a shot saved by the Royston keeper. Unfortunately Dan (in defence), suffered an injury which ended his game, leaving the team without a sub.

A small rearrangement brought on the 'one and only' Chesney 'Nev Hawkes Warren' into middle, with immediate success with Daniel G scoring the games first goal. 1-0 South.

The 3rd quarter saw, the heat and fitness getting to South a bit more. Royston began to probe the South defence, leading to several overloads, and the inevitable equalizer.

Soon after, another scramble in the D, lead to Royston taking the lead. However South continued to attack, with the midfield triangle comfortably holding onto the ball until opportunities arose. Both Danny G and Danny J continued to hassle the Royston defense but that elusive final strike was not to be. 

An inevitable Royston counter attack led to a third goal which goalkeeper Joe was unable to stop, after putting on some magnificent saves. 

The final score of 1-3 ultimately was down to Royston converting their chances and South  needing to work a bit more on theirs.