Hertford VI 0 - 6 WestHerts VII

Miserable weather, miserable result, worst of all Andy Rawlings heading off to A&E just after half time with what in the end was only a nasty cut above the eye but could easily have been much worse.

However, not all so bleak as it sounds. With four of our regular juniors moving up to the 4s and 5s, and with George Fuller and Jack Elkins joining us for the first time, we had to find a new shape, and by half time, though we were one down to a rather soft goal, we were beginning to look the better side and just seemed to need to find our best positions and gel together a bit. But the planned half time reorganisation all went wrong as Jack split a finger, then Andy tried to head a back stick shot off the line and ....blood everywhere! To add insult to injury, West Herts converted the resulting penalty and added two more quick goal before our 11 survivors got out of shock. Big thanks to Elliot Barling for taking Andy A&E.

Then we settled down and played some very decent hockey for twenty-five minutes, throwing everything at them but not surprisingly conceding a couple more goals on the break towards the end. George and Jack showed us we have a lot to look forward to when they have a bit of match time under their belts, Chris Dean ran his heart out tracking back into defence, Andy B and Dave drove hard into the opposition D and both Chris's opened up the flanks with neat passing play, but we couldn't get anything past their keeper.

Andy, you'll be glad to hear, duly turned up at the club house in time for thee quiz night and helped the 6th XI team (John, Steve, Geoff and our old allies Nick Hoyle and Peter Branford) to a narrow but well deserved win.