Clash of the titans: top of the league Peterborough 5s meets rising tiger Cambridge South 2s. What will happen in this epic battle? When these teams met previously in the season, South managed to shake off their disappointing start and won a hard-fought draw; would they improve on this performance in the rematch?

True to recent form, South started the game brightly, with forwards Rob Barton and Tristen Knight harassing the Peterborough build-up from the very start and especially the centre-midfield duo of Manu Bhardwaj and Mariano Rosenzvaig contributing to the attacks. Although play was more in P’boro’s half to start with, it was the away side that opened the score, when their right wing managed to get part South’s Tom Anns. Goalie Shahbaz Ali saved the initial effort, but the attacker beat the defence to the rebound and tapped in at short range.

To South’s credit, their heads didn’t drop - instead, the team tightened up its shape and went back on the attack, confident that goals would come. As they did: in a fluent move up the right-hand side, right-mid Bhav Virdi delivered his customary cracking cross into the D, where newly subbed-on Dom Nelson finished with an unstoppable first-touch slap. Soon afterwards, Tristen proved his mettle in midfield by dribbling through just about the whole P’boro team, only to see his shot hit the ‘keeper’s pads. Luckily, Mariano snapped up the rebound to give South the lead. At half-time, the home side were ahead, but conscious that the game was still very much in contest.

Now attacking with the setting sun behind them, South started the second half in good spirits again. A lovely subtle pass by Manu found Dom in the D. His shot being saved, only for Rob to what he does best and poach a goal. At 3-1 South were starting to relax, somewhat prematurely... When a South attack broke down in midfield, a few missed tackles let the Peterborough attack into Shahbaz’s D, where the attacker took little time to finish off his windfall.

Peterborough were now clearly scenting a come-back into the game and started chasing the equaliser hard. Scant minutes had passed when they seemed to get it: a short corner was won, returned to injector, who rammed it home off Shahbaz’s pads. Fortunately for South, the umpires ruled the shot on goal to have high, thus disallowing the goal, to P’boro disgust. South’s reprieve was short-lived, though: soon afterwards, a Peterborough surge after filching the ball in midfield found South in some disarray, allowing an unmarked attacker to flick from short range to get on level peggings.

With around 15 minutes left in the game, both sides knew everything was in the balance again. South’s first task, obviously, was to stop P’boro’s recent momentum, which they did in style. Again, the ball was played up the right-hand side of midfield, where Bhav found himself in the D with half a yard space. Reminiscent of footballing glory (well, for orange-loving Ron Oren, anyway), Bhav deceived everyone (himself included, probably) by playing a cross to close to the line, it actually went in. Rarely has anyone seen the little dude jump so high in the air with joy!

And still it wasn’t over. Peterborough refused to give up and pressured the home side to the last minute. Saving dives by everyone in the defence (most notably Andy Passmore, who’s clearly studied Chris Ashton’s recent showboating) couldn’t prevent one more short going to the visitors - as the final whistle went. To the agony of the midfield, this was repeated twice, as Peterborough managed to find feet of the out-rushing Ian Glover and Bhav. When the solid defence held against the third short as well and the final whistle finally went for real, such a huge cheer erupted one would be excused to think a championship was won. Once again, South showed its grit and determination, fighting hard to keep their campaign to reach dizzying heights on the rails.

Afterwards, skipper Ron may have got somewhat carried away when he said: “If we keep playing like this, we don’t only deserve to get promoted, but to secure a foothold in the league above too” (well, if one allows some paraphrasing to remove post-match overexuberation), but nobody can take away that this was an excellent performance to gain a great result. The juggernaut rolls on...