Cambridge South travelled to Boston to play the last match of the first half of the season. South was 4th in the table and Boston was 5th before this match. Captain Ron & Vice Sanjay were not there, which meant Dave Monck was wearing the Captain's armband.

Both the teams started on a positive note with Boston and Cam South penetrating each other's Ds.

Boston as usual played a very physical and aggressive game with quick passing and good runs into the D. In one such move the left half of Boston missed his marker (Bav Virdi) and deflected a cross ball into the goal. Boston were 1-0 up in 10 minutes.

A lot of new faces in the South team meant that there was lack of communication to start with, but South settled down as the match progressed. Rich Claes was doing his usual runs into the D and trying to create chances, but the goal was hard to come by. In the dying seconds of the 1st half Bav hit the ball from the right and Rob deflected the ball into the right top corner, the ball hit the net and bounced off into the keeper's shoulder and came back into play. The South defenders saw it clearly but the umpire didn't see it. The first half ended with Boston leading 1-0.

During the break an application was made to GB Hockey to provide goal line technology for the East Mean's leagues, specially 4NW.

The first 10 minutes of the 2nd half was all South. We got few penalty corners but coming back from the Christmas break meant that we missed the Thursday trainings and our penalty corners were not as good as they were in November and December.

Rob was deflecting the ball from the crosses provided by Chris, Wilco, Rich, Jake & Bav into the Boston goalie's helmet, stick & chest. 2 inches on either side meant that South could have had the lead.

Boston doubled their lead from a very skilful goal where the Boston striker dribbled past two defenders to score a goal past Shahbaz's left shoulder. Andy Passmore was quick to point out that the ball didn't hit the net to the umpire, hence it shouldn't be given a goal.

South didn't give in and earned another short corner. Rich missed the insertion and Dave (who was there to take the strike) ran to get the ball, he passed to his right to a free standing Bav, who made no mistake to belt the ball into goal. Bang Sounded the Board.

Boston woke up and scored their 3rd goal of the match when the striker hit the ball hard into the goal and asked Shahbaz " Can you stop that, you B*****D?". The striker was sent to the sin bin for 5 minutes.

The match ended at 3-1.

The scoreline is not a true depiction of how close the match was. It was a good match on a cold and windy day on a pitch that was absolutely horrendous, mud filled pitch. And those who didn't go didn't miss the teas after the match.

Latest update: Goal Line technology application to GB Hockey has been rejected