COWHC Men's 3s vs Spencer Harlequins - 03rd December 2016

A late pushback time saw the 3s arrive at Royal Russell, the silent sun setting, and a chance to get a winter's tale back on track. After last week's hiccup, could we turn it on again and get back to winning ways?

The pre-match warm up was good, the words from dP about games without frontiers were spot on, and we started like we were in a race to climb Solsbury Hill. The pace and movement of both Hugo and Mitchell up front meant for the Spencer defence it was less "follow you, follow me" more many too many shadows to follow.

Unfortunately for us, Mitchell seemed to be in a land of confusion when it came to finding the goal, shots going wide, or at the keeper, or at one point clearing the fence and almost departing the school grounds! If his father had been watching, I'm pretty sure the reaction would have been "you're no son of mine" after that!

That said, the work done on the training ground around our attacking shorts did, eventually pay dividends. Mitchell did actually get his deflection on target, there was a far from invisible touch from the defender's foot on the line - Flick awarded (unlike last week where the man on the corner decided otherwise...)

Will walked up saying "I have the touch", and boy did he - rocketing the ball home like a sledgehammer.

1 - 0 at half time was not really a reflection on the way we had played. Sure, Spencer were playing OK, but we should have been out of sight. Jesus he knows me, and he knows I don't exaggerate, but had it been 6 - 0 it would not have been an unfair scoreline.

The second half followed a similar pattern. Our dominance not being converted into goals and we paid the price. A Spencer attack was thwarted, but the ball was only half cleared. It was drilled into our D, bouncing and skipping on it's way through before being turned in by an attacker who had drifted clear of his marker.

Were we going to be guilty of throwing it all away again? Not this time, we kept pushing and were aided by one of the opposition taking exception to the umpiring. This saw him getting a green card, which was then quite rightly upgraded to yellow when he showed no self control and kept on moaning.

The rest of the Spencer team, to their credit, didn't let this affect them and they played well to ride out the suspension. We kept going right to the end though, and a late short corner was converted by Will to give us the lead again. Then it was of seeing out time... although we did drop in too deep almost straight away, giving Spencer a chance which was scrambled clear.

The final whistle blew and the relief at being back to winning ways was palpable.

POM went to Will, for a dominant display at the top of the diamond and showing composure in front of goal.
DOD went to Mitchell, for a dominant display up front marred (hugely) by not being able to find the goal!

Thanks to Lisa P and Indy for umpiring a particularly tough game.