Mens 3 Vs City of Peterborough 7

Back to winning ways where the Mens 3rds bossed territory and possession and should really have had more goals, but were occasionally vulnerable on the counter from the opposition. The midfield 5 were particularly energetic and that made a difference with an average age in the 20's. 

We again set up with a formation of a back 3, midfield 5 and 2 up front and this is enabling us to be on the front foot more and our hockey was generally good, lots of good passing and movement and spreading the ball around and throughout the team. We have a major achilles heel sometimes in that we are too tippy tappy when near the opposition D and not forceful enough and so the mindset was one of trying to better balance our approach with a high press and hammering the ball into the D when the opportunity arose and today this worked with a lot of long corners and shorts being won. 

This approach helped to maintain significant pressure and although it was still 0-0 approaching half time, there wasn't mass panic and the team were playing well. Shortly before half time however, another short corner found its way to Chris Bryden, who, playing further upfield today in a wide midfield position was able to force the ball home.

The team talk at half time was all about retaining focus and intensity, continuing doing what we were doing and try to force even more ball directly into the D. Within seconds of the restart, Richard heeded the teamtalk and won the first of a succession of shorts by doing exactly that. The 2nd goal followed fairly early in the 2nd half by Adam, with a further goal by Adam about 55 mins in. Paul Ray added the final goal a minute or 2 before the end.

It was good to get back to winning ways, after a run of 6 straight defeats - a period in which we never felt we played particularly badly and felt hard done by in some matches - ultimately, most of those defeats were where we dominated possession, but did not have quite enough guile to get past packed defences or where a lack of subs and injuries have affected our ability to stay in a game.