COWHC Men's 4s vs Bank of England Men's 3s - 17th Nov 2018

This report starts with a short limerick from our resident cunning linguist Ben:
On a bumpy newly laid pitch.
Without our South African we hit a glitch.
Team spirit was great, their goals were late.
Despite passing and movement we hit checkmate.

A top of the table clash on the new Monk's Hill pitch. The reputation of the 4s soaring to the point where players were being turned away from their opportunity to join the great and the good... what could possibly go wrong?

The starting line up was strong, unfortunately it seemed no-one had really told us that, and as Bank came at us with only 10 men (their captain was running late), they somehow managed to breach our line and take the lead!

We came back hard at them, and the game ebbed and flowed until Foz appeared with the ball on the left wing. Taking it towards the corner, he turned then towards the D and drilled a superb ball across. Cady dummied it superbly, letting it reach Ben on the far side, who took a touch and fired an unstoppable rocket of a shot into the net.

1 - 1
And 11 vs 11 on pitch as shortly afterwards the Bank captain arrived.

Being at full strength meant the oppo started the second half strongly and retook the lead in almost comical fashion. They won a short, that's fair enough, but when the ball was played back to the injector it didn't seem there was much danger. Brooksy closed him down... not quite enough and the player got a shot away. Even then, it wasn't that strong, yet somehow it evaded Phil, flicked of yours truly's glove and somehow almost apologetically snuck past Julian on the line.

2 - 1 down, but we're nothing if not resilient and we pushed for an equaliser.

Time seemed to be running out, but with just under 10 minutes left, Fordy showed great commitment to burst forward from right back, intercept the ball, drive into the D and win a short corner.

The big guns were called up from the back. The skipper injected, Julian received. The first shot didn't quite work, the second found it's way back to skip, who calmly slotted it away.

2 - 2

What was needed now were calm heads and possession hockey. Unfortunately both evaded us as we pushed for a win, and ended up conceding twice more.

4 - 2 the final score, which didn't fully reflect the balance of the game.

POM was Yours Truly (did I mention, I scored?)

Thanks to Shaun and Birdy for umpiring.