Cambridge South 3s arrived in St Neots looking for a convincing victory over their mid table opponents; they weren’t to be disappointed.

St Neots took the push back but were quickly closed down and found themselves defending early attacks from Matt and Dom [Ed's note - we quickly persuaded them to stop attacking the oppo and play hockey instead]. Their surprise was evident as the Saints struggled to find their structure, leaving Cambridge South in control of the ball for the first 5 minutes. South’s attempts on goal though were headed off by calm yet urgent defending.

The Saints then found their structure and began troubling the South midfield when in possession; but South’s defence were unflappable and contained all incursions into the South 25 solidly and with little danger. When in possession South moved forward well with Matt and Paul working triangles to Dom and John finding space and drawing defenders [Ed's note - some of his sketches will be displayed next weekend].

David, who was having a quiet game thanks to a distinct lack of balls up to this point [Ed's note - no aspersions to Mr Doupé's manhood intended] was pleased to see the belated Wilco, a mere 45 minutes late this week, brought on for Simon. With St Neots bunched over to South’s right side, the more balanced midfield found it easier to penetrate and before long Dom had opened the scoring. Paul intercepted a loose ball out of defence and promptly slipped it to Dom who danced past a despairing, and illegal, attempt at stopping him to slot the ball home. Dom confessed relief that the umpire had played the advantage as he wasn't sure he'd have done as well with a flick!

This sparked new energy in the South side, who were now using triangles and timed runs to penetrate behind the St Neots defence. This brought further reward before half time, David making a quite brilliant strike as the ball came to him on his reverse side a yard outside the right post.

Confusion in the midfield [Ed's note - i.e. chatting tactics until the whistle rather than switching on and thinking about the game] saw South give away the ball straight from the second half push back. With St Neots's two star players looking to score, their attacking movement became more direct but was contained by the solid defending in green. Mobilising the ball with a few well chosen passes, South delivered a timely opportunity for Greaves’s goal-a-game™. A lovely move saw Jan play the ball from the right touchline across to Tom, just outside the top of the D. Tom stepped inside his marker and into the D before slipping the ball under his arm to John, who teed it up with one touch and despatched it with a second.

With frustration showing, one of the aforementioned St Neots stars decided to dog the umpires with calls of "third party" whenever anyone moved (or didn’t) while the other kept losing the ball trying to hammer through into the D. Undeterred, he eventually he managed to punch through from the right to send a superb lifted shot into the South net - a solo effort from a player playing divisions below his standard that we shouldn’t be too upset by. John was deprived of chalking up another when he struck a ball played in from South's skipper which then got trapped under the opposing keeper. The keeper finally rolled off and it looked like John might actually get the ball only for the umpire to give an inexplicable 16.

The opportunity made the South attack up their tempo and with a number of committed attempts, resulting first in John taking quite a knock and then a Dom sandwich [Ed's note - beefy and with a lot of pepper] which only resulted in another St Neots 16.

Cambridge South continued to press well, controlling the closing stages of the game. Dom made sure South finished on a high note when he reacted quickest to Tom's shot against the post, hurtling in to beat the keeper to the ball and jab it home. With complaints from the opposition that South had failing to stop play when a St Neots player had gone down injured, despite the umpires waving play on, Paul identified it as karma as the exact same situation had occurred in the first half with Dom on the ground injured. The opposition pointed out that scoring didn’t make him look THAT injured, so to diffuse the situation skipper Simon stepped in to console them that “I’m sure his hand really hurt as he slammed the ball into the goal.” - it didn’t seem to have the desired effect.

A great game, maintaining the table-topping 3s 100% record.