3 - 1 ahead with 7 minutes to play, Hertford were managing the game nicely to a close. Bedford then stunned us with a penalty and a goal from open play, and it was 3 -3 with 2 minutes on the clock. With 30 seconds to go we finally managed to convert a short corner and bagged our 10th win of the campaign.
With younger adults and older juniors BS had the legs on us and were never a pushover, giving Nick and the defence plenty to do, but we got on top with a couple of early goals from Tom N and Tom Q, and were annoyed to concede one back, but Benedict restored the two goal lead before half time leaving us feeling we just about had a fair return for our pressure, and the shortest team talk I've given: 'keep doing that'.
The third quarter was comfortable, but we failed to convert a number of opportunities and BS grew more competitive as the pool of sub on the bench seem to grow and grow....still, we defended steadily against increasing pressure until it neatly fell apart at the end. As BS pressed for a 4th, we calmly poached the ball, moved it rapidly through midfield as we had all day, won the short and watched Kris scramble in a loose rebound.
Short as always of fit central defenders, we pulled Kris back to centre back and gave Benedict the back of the diamond again. That combination gave us a first rate springboard for turning defence into attack, and with Steve at his most obdurate at sweeper and Jo, Lewis and Zach closing down the flanks we gave very little away. Up front Freddie, Tom and Ian, with some more sedate creative work from Charles, slipped through their midfield time after time with a simple fast passing game interspersed with some lovely long balls for the lads to chase. The one weakness we need to work on is our short corner conversion. Our confidence and delivery on back passing also showed real progress. Player of the match goes to Benedict for a tireless midfield effort, but this really was a complete team effort, and another delight to watch.