Cambridge South 2nds, sponsored by PwC, came away empty handed but not dispirited from this trip to league leaders Horncastle. The first problem of the day, as always, was the journey. Last Saturday, I was north of the arctic circle. At times on the roads north across the fens it felt like I was halfway back there again! The next was the discovery of the lack of a second umpire. With both teams having 12 players, a deal where each side would provide a player to Umpire a half was struck, with Jan Brynjolffssen taking on the job for South, earning the MoM award in the process.

Once the game was underway the hosts pushed straight into the South circle. Tackles were missed as players dived in, and it looked like it might be a long day. However, after the initial shock of the pace and stick skill that Horncastle could bring to bare, South’s defence began to settle into a pattern that at least caused the hosts some problems in cutting through.

Horncastle took the lead around the ten minute mark when an incursion into the D saw Lino having to go to the deck. The ball bounced off a defensive block and back to a forward, who shot at the net from behind Lino but also from a narrow angle. Neil Sneade was on the line, but he couldn’t prevent the ball from crossing. South went two goals behind from a clean, powerful strike into the corner from a penalty corner. The set-piece had been awarded for a deliberate foul outside the circle by Gareth Hebbron, a challenge that was poor enough to also draw a green card; however, in a case of mistaken identity it was Neil Sneade who was singled out for punishment!

South were not on the back foot for the entire of the half, and in fact looked quite dangerous when the front three of Dave Stock, Kevin Rowland and Rob Barton combined. One move had Kev in space on the far post screaming for the ball, only for Rob to elect to shoot, a shot which a defender deflected wide for a corner.

With half-time came the return of Jan to the South fold, and a bit of defensive re-organisation. Neil moved up into midfield, with South now having a sub they could utilise. Horncastle’s stick skills and dribbling had caused the South rearguard problems throughout and it was from this source that their third goal came; a midfielder picked up a loose ball on the twenty-five, went around the outside of a couple of defenders to edge himself into the circle, from where he fired low and hard in at the near post a shot which proved too strong for Lino to stop, despite him getting a foot on it.

Horncastle’s fourth goal was quite a frustrating one for South, as a lobbed shot from the top of the circle went past Dave Monck’s head; Dave was only a couple of yards from the ball, and the South defence felt the shot, as it had been above knee-height of a defender within five yards, ought to have be ruled dangerous. However, the Umpire didn’t agree, and with the ball dropping at the goal out of the bright afternoon sun, Lino was only able to glove the ball over his own line.

South were beginning to play some nice passing hockey of their own in this period and were getting closer and closer to breaking the Horncastle rearguard. Eventually, as it had to, it cracked. Neil intercepted a pass on the 25 and shipped the ball left to Dave S. Dave flicked a neat pass into the run of Rob in the right channel, from where Rob found the far corner with a firm (strong-side!) shot. A few minutes later it seemed that South had cut the gap to just two goals when Dave M’s powerful free hit from the left was given a slight deflections in the circle by both Dave S and Gareth before ending up in the goal. However, with the crowd of bodies the Umpires couldn’t be sure who it had hit and after consulting each other gave a long corner.

To compound matters, South then conceded a fifth goal with a powerful strike from a switched short corner. Again, Lino got a piece of the ball as it went in, but not enough to save it, in fact dragging it clear of Dave M on the line who insisted he had it covered. Lino might have saved the shot if he had been able to spread himself as he wanted, but on coming out and trying to lie down he discovered post-man Jan in the way, and had to go down late and to his left instead of his preferred stretch to his right.

South had the last words in the game, when Kevin turned a Colin Singleton driven ball goalwards towards the near post. It wasn’t the sweetest contact of Kev’s career, more a slow bobbler, but it was this aspect of the shot that did for the Horncastle ‘keeper as the ball bounced over his attempted stick save. One final chance for Rob, which went just wide, was the last significant action, as the match finished 5-2. With more luck with the decisions the final score might have been 4-3, but that Horncastle deserved the three points was in little doubt.

Skipper Kev was pleased with how his side had fared against opposition with many quality players, saying “Travelling 2+ hours to play the clear league leaders was always going to be hard, the team raised their game to give them a challenge and came away having enjoyed the match, periods of fluid passing play by South led to a good number of chances against a sound Horncastle defence.”