Hertford VI 2 - 11 Southgate Pitchers

And I'm afraid the score just about reflects the imbalance between the teams. A slick, fast, well-organised 16-man machine with non-playing coach that would have given our 4s a tough game and wouldn't have looked mismatched against our 3s. That's the world of a National League club. They will get promoted so we don't have to worry about them again.

We played as well as they let us. Daryl and Russell gave us some stability in the middle of the field, we managed to string some promising moves together down both flanks in the first half. Mark Voaden's presence of mind - a quickly taken self pass on their 23, whilst Southgate were still scowling at the umpire, and a neat square ball for Chris Dean to beat the stranded keeper - got us on the scoresheet. In the second half we rather lost our width, but Russell and Daryl battered valiantly down the middle to win our one and only short corner which Russell slammed home second attempt.

Everybody kept trying, I lost count of the number of saves Nicholas made, and John, Clive and Chris Dean (three - the last one with the ankle) cleared off the line, to save us from a rugby score.

Some work to be done on adapting defensive play to quicker opponents, we need to be between the man and our goal and right on their shoulders.

Frustrating day for the forwards with little possession or space to work in, but we'll put this one down to experience - we don't meet teams like this very often.