M1 3-4 Wisbech Town Mens 2

Division 3NW action resumed for South on a bright and pleasingly non-Arctic morning with a rematch against a Wisbech Town side who, in the first game of the season, had grudgingly succumbed to a late double strike from Keith Hewitt when they appeared to be heading for victory.

Encouragingly, South carried on where they had left off in September, with Hewitt once again to the fore as brisk interplay between himself and the forthright Mark Taylor sent warning shots across the bows of the Wisbech defence. The South back line looked in good order, too, as Chris Graveling cleared a dangerous cross and John Benedikz twice relieved opposing forwards with superbly-timed tackles. Though Wisbech threatened the South goal on a couple of occasions, it came as no particular surprise when a typically bullish run by Taylor set Al Sinclair free to lift over the advancing keeper, enabling Taylor himself to apply the finishing touch with an unopposed tap-in.

South continued in this vein as the multi-tasking Chris Massey played an assured role at the rear, reading the play confidently and distributing with precision and calm good sense. Graveling was his usual omnipresent self, offering a ticker-tape of tactical advice to those in front of him, while Hewitt stole the ball from under the noses of apparently in-control attackers like a fox in a farmer's hen-coop. Having neatly bagged and disposed of a clever aerial ball, Massey quickly found Taylor with a fine long pass up the left and Taylor needed no second bidding to charge the D and send in a pinpoint cross that eluded the keeper. Rob Garrett latched onto it on the right and, after coolly outmanoeuvring two defenders to give himself the best platform, cracked home a lovely shot that bulged the net just above the backboard.

Two goals in the first fifteen minutes represented the ideal start for South but it soon became clear that Wisbech, whose age profile appeared rather younger than in the first meeting between the sides, had no intention of bowing the knee. Al Sinclair had to be at his most elastic to reach and neutralise a cunningly-angled diagonal ball before Wisbech gained the first of their eight short corners following a bout of feverish hacking in the circle. A foot offence led to a second short, which was diverted wide by an unmarked man on the post; another slap in was deflected wide to the left and a carbon copy from a free hit met the same fate. In between, Leo Tomita kept things honest in the left corner while Hewitt came up with an inspired interception before bringing off a subtle stick shimmy that saw three attackers all sent the wrong way. A third short awarded when Graveling prevented a shot by the simple expedient of sitting on the ball was mitigated by Benedikz, who read the slip the whole way, but with the fourth South were not so lucky. Though Steve Parker got plenty of blocker on the initial crisp strike, the ball dropped fortuitously free of defensive reach and a Wisbech attacker batted it in on the reverse stick before anyone had a chance to recover. Moments later, the visitors fiddled a way through on the right and a reverse shot sailed just over the bar.

Further depredations were prevented by swift defensive reinforcement from Garrett, aided by some gutsy work from Tim Clapp, who several times wangled his way ingeniously out of trouble in the corners. Graveling buzzed around firefighting, once making a classic reverse interception, Matt Readman calmingly put in a few time-buying circles and South fought back with a determined surge from skipper Chris Baker, who registered 6.9 on the Richter scale as he was royally upended just outside the D. Persistent forechecking from the unquenchable Hewitt served further notice that Wisbech wouldn't have things all their own way, but an unconverted cross, a reverse shot wide and another first-timer that failed to hit the target all boded ill for the South rearguard. Shortly before the interval, Wisbech won a fifth penalty corner after a manly shoulder-to-shoulder tussle won by Graveling but Parker, reading the set-up, dived far to his right to bring off an excellent stick and glove save under close attention from a visiting attacker. Two crunchingly resolute tackles from Benedikz ensured South still had the advantage at half-time but it was evident that a bumpy ride lay ahead.

South actually had the better of the opening exchanges in the second half, with Massey hammering unerringly up the line after outsmarting his Wisbech opposite number in the tackle and Jim Thorpe hoovering up a tricky cross before breaking down a Wisbech thrust up the right. Garrett then motored devastatingly up the middle, dispatching defenders left and right and evading the keeper, before running agonisingly out of pitch as the ball refused to accept more than a tipped glance just past the post. Fortune then deserted South at the other end as an innocuous Wisbech cross slipped off a defensive stick, leaving a suddenly perfectly-placed attacker to pounce and rifle home into the opposite corner for the equaliser. Another cross was skimmed away by Parker as Wisbech upped the work rate and Thorpe and Garrett had to use all their wiles to keep trouble at bay. Spells of possession were strictly limited and, even though Clapp and Readman brought off fierce tackles and Benedikz covered amply, pickings were slim for South at this point.

Wisbech petitioned vehemently for a stroke as one of their men went down under a challenge from Parker to the left of the goal but umpire Steve Riches, who was right on top of the action, correctly rejected the appeal as there was no direct goal-scoring opportunity from the angle of play in question. The whys and wherefores ceased to matter moments later, however, as the resulting penalty corner strike was deflected against a post, bouncing out straight to a grateful Wisbech forward, who thrashed it in as almost everyone else's backs were turned. Parker quickly had to chase another man away from the goal as South once more yielded ground, but Thorpe then eased the nerves with a big hit before Benedikz, a beacon of common sense throughout, fed Hewitt, who set Massey up for a long pass which Clapp swept with great timing into the net – sadly, as the umpires soon confirmed, from just outside the circle.

Massey, Baker and Hewitt in particular strove hard to pick up what crumbs they could from an increasingly dominant Wisbech midfield but possession was too often ceded for a lack of close support and Parker was soon forced into making a fine glove save to his left from a hard, high shot as Wisbech found space in the circle again. Play swiftly switched to the right and, after Parker had met a shot squarely in the solar plexus and kicked clear, the follow-up appeared to be going wide but, whether by accident or design, was somehow deflected in by a second attacker loitering with intent. The only positive at this stage was that there were still seventeen minutes to go but South then conceded a seventh short, Parker again blocking a high shot with his glove. Wisbech continued to deny South time to dwell on the ball and the swift, first-time moves that are South's stock-in-trade were virtually strangled at birth. There were good individual touches, notably from Sinclair and Readman, but nothing really cohesive emerged as Wisbech narrowed the spaces and encouraged over-optimistic passes.

After Wisbech had recorded their eighth penalty corner, South finally one won of their own on sixty-two minutes when a Baker-Thorpe-Hewitt combo forced an obstruction. Baker tried a nifty zig-zag as soon as he realised the Garrett option was blocked off but was comprehensively jumped on amid a hail of mud and bullets as Wisbech zipped off upfield again, engineering a quick shot that went wide across the face of the goal. With five minutes to go, South glimpsed a chink of light when Tomita, with a trademark slapped hit from outside the D, rammed the ball into a forest of sticks and legs, from where the opportunist Taylor seized the moment and swept in his second of the game to loud protestations from the visiting defence, who had possibly cast their minds back to South's Great Escape in the seasonal opener. But Lord Chief Justice Pride was unmoved by the submissions, leaving South a final chance to rescue themselves once more. This time, however, there was to be no fairy-tale ending - despite Hewitt busting a gut to the last - and the clock ticked mercilessly away as South looked in vain for a deus ex machina.

Skipper Baker, though obviously disappointed by the result, conceded that Wisbech were deserving winners and that South had been slightly off the pace in terms of organisation and fitness. With the last League action over a month ago and what could have been a useful final practice game falling victim to the weather last weekend, South were perhaps not as well primed as they needed to be for such a demanding encounter against a team which looked to have strengthened markedly since September. The forwards were unable to get quite enough service to repeatedly breach the Wisbech D, though took their chances well when they did, and the visitors' midfield and forward line increasingly suffocated South's normally assured build-up play. However, there are still ten games to go, the pack chasing Ely are all liable to have their reverses at some time or another and South must press on with their game plan, knowing that they have plenty of experience and talent in all positions and trusting that they can maintain good availability and remain fully focused for the important games to come. Next week sees a visit to Spalding, where a few years back there really was a Great Escape after half the team were accidentally locked in the changing rooms following the game and had to feed both themselves and all the items from Steve Parker's capacious goalkeeping kit out through a window which seemed only slightly bigger than a standard letter box. A more routine mode of exit, together with a win, is therefore firmly on next weekend's wish list.

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John Benedikz
Player of the Match