Men's 3rds v : Awaiting Result

A game which, in the end, was settled by the team which played to their strengths, overcoming the effort and individual forays of the other team. St Neots used their combination of wily and beefy defence and midfield and rapid, skilful young forwards to break down the dogged Cambridge South.

The first half was relatively even, with two well taken St Neots goals offset by a simple Greaves and Lewis short corner routine, with Andy Lewis's unstoppable shot smashing into the back board. South did have other chances, with Rob Barton and Andy Lewis both coming close on a few occasions, but there were always too many defenders and a good goalkeeper to beat.

South suffered in the second half through three key injuries: Creed (pulled muscle), South (ditto) and Greaves (getting a bang on his foot, which at the time was twelve inches off the ground just in time to connect with a fast-travelling ball coming out of the St Neots defence). This last injury was by far the most dramatic, or at least the writhing around on the ground until the free hit was awarded was worthy of a "5.9".

All this excitement failed to distract St Neots from plundering three goals in the last five minutes to give an unrealisticly one sided scoreline. This was unfair on the otherwise stalwart defence of Glover, Passmore, Evans and Lee, who had stuck to their task well up to that point.

This game showed that effort and individual skills are not going to be enough at this level to beat well-drilled teams, using speed of thought and speed of ball to sap our strengths.

As always at St Neots, the match teas were good

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Ian Evans
Player of the Match