A Strong South team came across an equally strong Alford team, who’s only advantage was a striker clearly had played some higher level hockey than Div 5NW. Alford were further helped by the fact that South were reduced to 9 men for the second week running through injury. First half injuries to Tom Annes (Hamstring) and rather more seriously Neil Sneade (badly broken finger), reduced South to 10 fully functioning players as Captain greaves escorted Neil to A+E. This was followed up by Dom Nelson tweaking his hamstring mid way through the second half.

Sporting a new 3232 formation South took some a while to adjust to the new formation, with Alford taking full advantage, with their star striker stretching the South defense and slotting in a first half hat-trick. Momment of the first half for South was a slick counter attacking move involving Paul South slotting the ball through to Stuart Creed, who dribbled into the Alford D and slotted a long distance shot into corner past the despairing Alford keeper.

Half time: 4v1

After a stirring half-time team talk from Vicky Lavis South came out looking to get back into the game and for a while looked like they may get an unlikely point. Alford moved 5v1 up before man of the match Chris Rigge slotted in 2 quick goals to pull the score back to 5v3. South then had an excellent chance to reduce the deficit further, but the ball snuck just the wrong side of the post. As the game progressed and injuries mounted, South legs tired and Alford claimed a couple of quick goals at the death.

Fulltime: South 3v7 Alford.

Despite the score-line South played some excellent hockey throughout the game and heads never dropped. Alford are a high flying team this season having come down last year and South acquitted themselves well. Despite this South need to start picking up some points to avoid a relegation dogfight