Mens 3 Vs Horncastle 2

The 3rds travelled upto Horncastle with 11 players, with Geoff Watts and Anthony Nethercott ably stepping in to bolster the team and with Richard also agreeing to step in at late 11th hour. We found ourselves mostly on the defensive for much of the 1st 20 mins with the pacy front line of Horncastle causing us some challenges and gaining numerous short corners, but in general, they found it tough to break down our organised lines of defence and we always had an out ball and thus posed a threat on the break

We built up some concerted pressure around the 20 minute mark, leading to a short corner, which was ultimately despatched by Steve Moore following a decent short corner routine with Mark receiving, passing to Anthony, who had time to pick his spot and fire in a shot which Steve helped on the way.

Horncastle equalised about 10 mins before half time, where a couple of mistakes in midfield and our back line enabled their tricky forward to nip in and score. St Neots still had time for another couple of short corners to even up the short corner count and where we again went close with a couple of opportunities.

The half time talk emphasised on keeping it tight, organised and retaining our focus. About 10 mins into the 2nd half, an organised move from defence through to midfield and deep into Horncastles half saw Richard get hold of the ball on the left channel, pass it to Mark who found Anthony in the perfect position in the D to control the ball and lift it over the advancing keeper. 2-1

The play then started to get a little stretched with Horncastle using their pacy width to cause St Neots problems down both flanks, but excellent defending from the back line and Simon managed to keep Horncastle mostly at bay until around the 55 minute mark when an overload allowed Horncastle to equalise.

The game then started to get more open with our defence getting deeper and Horncastle pressing and winning a few short corners but St Neots, through good defending, always having an out ball and through the hard work and strong running of the midfield and forward line, saw the game through to the end of the match with an overall fair 2-2 result.