Bishop's Stortford V 3 - 3 Hertford VI

Our first away point of the season, and a well-earned one too!

With a full 16-man squad we saw the first use of the classic 47-and-a-half-minutes-each sub rota for a very long time, and with Nick Bentley coming in at the last minute for Daryl, we had a suprisingly well-balanced set-up. BS fielded a strong and athletic side who gave us little space or time to play, but having Nick Hughes, Kash and Chris Duncan back together, we had the pace and power to hit hard when we got behind their midfield. A smart break by Chris set up a goal mouth scramble in the 2nd minute but a succession of short range shots thumped into their keeper's pads and we came away empty handed. Instead BS got the early goal after a strong dribble and cross left the backs out of place. We settled down after that, both sides made chances but with some weak finishing by BS and some fine keeping at their end (Dave's short corner strike coming closest) we went to half time one down.

A rather unfortunate deflection from a short corner set up BS's second just after the break, but we rallied and kept pressing up the pitch, the passing was tolerable brisk and accurate and we got our reward when Nick pulled one back with 15 minutes gone. Play flowed from end to end, Nick Izzard produced a couple of blinders to keep us in touch, and with 10 to go Chris Dean fed Chris Duncan from the left, and a firm push left their keeper stranded.

We only had a few minutes of relief as BS pinned us back and converted another short corner. We threw everything forward and forced our own short corner with a minute to go, and this time Dave picked the far corner with a fine first time strike.

Great team effort, but MotM goes to Nick Hughes for all round work at mid-right, rapid distribution and a succession a critical tackles. Special mention to Aodhan who kept his cool and control (and the ball) in a string of contests with BS men who were happy to use their weight.