Hertford VI 0 - 7 Broxbourne V

For 58 minutes this was an entertaining, reasonably even, if slightly scrappy game of hockey. Unfortunately that was after Broxbourne had scored 6 in the first 12 minutes.

Once we'd got over the shock of their pace upfront, we settled down to some dour and gritty defence mixed with some very smart counter-attacking, though to be fair the short corner count and the number of clear chances were still weighted heavily towards Broxbourne. But Nick somehow kept just about everything out, at the other end Matt White drew a good save with our best effort from a short corner strike, Chris Dean put one inches wide, Chris Duncan produced a string of dangerous crosses and Dave H had a few good drives into the D, but again we were left with a blank scoresheet.

Matt White and Mark Foster made welcome and effective returns to the side and when DPJ arrived for the second half we put some very nice moves together wide right. Another very busy day for the Dean family as well, with dad puuting in the hardest shift at the back and Chris looking ever livelier up front.

Finally, thanks to Rian and dad for teas - bot once again disappointing that there were more Broxbourne players back at the clubhose that Hertford ones.

Let's hope we can get out of the blocks quicker next week.