We arrived an hour before pushback, which enabled us to play a round of something that I am told resembled cricket, with Jo Dant and Matt Need showing obvious talent in this bizarre and incomprehensible sport. When I (George Betts) attempted to throw the ball with the suggested throwing technique of a twisted arm over the shoulder (eh?), I could not manage to get the ball quite on target, this sadly foreshadowed my later attempt to throw the ball back to Matt Withington when the game had finished. I still maintain that he could have caught the ball with his finger tips, sadly it did careen into the back of Joe Lynch. Now, despite Joe being the only junior on the team, he is by far the most sturdy of all our players, that's why we put him between the posts! Now, if it had hit any of the other absolute specimens in the M5s they would have crumpled like an empty crisp packet, and probably been out for the rest of the season. Luckily Joe is made of stronger stuff than the rest of us and shrugged it off easily.

We started the warm up by running around the athletic track, our captain James Mansell decided that despite me nailing the keeper with a cricket ball we should throw around hockey balls whilst jogging, luckily lightning did not strike twice, and James' devil-may-care attitude paid off this time...

We luckily managed to get Dan Talmage Fed-Exed to us from the Pacific coast of America! Just in time for the match, he was bundled to us so quickly his body clock was working 8 hours behind the rest of us, luckily his reactions on the pitch were not lagging by 8 hours and put in an excellent performance, and there was no need to return to sender :p

Now, the boring details of the match:

As is the M5s fashion we allowed them to score within the first 5 minutes with a quick goal, however we decided that we did not like conceding goals, and actually would much prefer to score for the rest of the game instead, now with that strong plan in place we proceeded with the rest of the match.

0-1

Josh Rollason fired back with an excellent shot that only narrowly drifted and hit the post, despite the umpire's initial belief the goal was true, the honesty of the South team and the conviction that there would be many more where that came from, meant we would have to wait a little longer for the equaliser.

A breakaway by Ivo lead to him dribbling up the pitch finally managing to get one on one with the keeper making him commit and then passing it to me with not a soul around and an empty goal.

1-1

Next Jo Dant made a brilliant run down the right wing beating players and finally getting a shot off but not at the goal, to me at the back post.

2-1

After south being awarded a brilliant number of shorts (or PCs as the cool kids say) we managed to find a winning combination with a quick injection a drag to the far post by Gareth and a tap in by Josh Rollason.

3-1

At this point the efficiency of our high press got a bit too much for one of the St Ives players taking a side line ball, he was so daunted by the suffocating nature of our press he decided he did not want to take the hit. He decided instead to aerial it behind him as far as possible, it went over the fence and will likely never be seen again! A new ball had to be found, as South quietly contemplated the psychological pressure our press was exerting.

The midfield played excellently, with a few shifts around in position the midfield held the ball wonderfully, maintained structure, and allowed our defence to push high, the amazing display made all the difference between this week's result and last week's.

Despite the overall brilliant display that the 5s put out, we had some random and unpredictable events on-field that were totally out of South's control, Ivo quite rightly pointed out that we should respond more positively to these situations. We will going forward focus on what we can do next to help the team and put us in a better position, rather than focus on things which we have no control over.  

MOM: Max Knipe put in an excellent shift by being completely solid in defense and having amazing confidence and presence on the ball, being a real anchor at the back.

LOM: Me (George Betts), I learned a valuable lesson that throwing a cricket ball at a junior will result in you having to write the match report, I was also criticised for not getting a hat-trick, but not all heroes wear capes, or receive the recognition they deserve...