Southgate Adelaide III 1 - 2 Hertford VI

Down to North London for a game of beach hockey at a very sandy Ashmole School ground – quite appropriate after our sub-aquatic friendly back in December.

In fact the pitch played beautifully in dry warm weather, which is more than we can say of the players, most of whom were very obviously playing their first game since the Christmas break. However, we did enough to look in fairly comfortable control of the game, with Ian finishing off a goal mouth scramble at the third or fourth attempt from a short corner after 20 minutes, and Adam Sutherland completing an excellent five man move down the left as first touch passes from Ian and Richard sliced through the Adelaide defence early in the second half. However, the flashes of brilliance were not so frequent. Adelaide had kept our defence on their toes without creating any real danger, but a soft short corner concession let Adelaide back into the game. We continued to create chances but had to absorb a lot of pressure and a string of short corners at the end to come away with the points.

Better than last week, and three good points in the bag, but we will need to step up another level if we want to reverse our result against the Blueharts kids.