Nomads top Cambridge South 3-2

Nomads had the pleasure of playing an away game against Cambridge South close to home at the Leys School. Facing us was the familiar face of former Nomad, Dave Spence, playing in a radical centre forward position.

Nomads started the game off in a 10am-PB-surely-too-early-for-hockey drowsiness. Although we had more of the ownership of the ball, we weren't convincing enough and we didn't put it to good use. Credit to South, they played to their strength with solid defence and tight man-to-man marking with good ball movement when going forward.

Against the run of play, South scored first. Then, Nomads won a short corner: injection by Jack, stopped by Ben and Arthur nutmeged the goal keeper from a straight strike to level the score.

Nomads' second goal again came from their short corner routine: Jack injected and then back to Jack from the top of the D. The pass back to Jack was on his open stick side rather than on the intended reverse stick side. No matter for Jack, as he stopped it, span round and flicked it goal bound – off various defenders' stick / foot / shoulder and possibly other body parts before crossing the line.

At the other end, Ethan came charging out to make a good, sliding tackle on a South attacker which leveled the South forward. To the surprise of many (including most of South's team) a penalty flick was awarded, which turncoat, Spence, duly dispatched in the bottom corner to level the scores again.

Nomads piled on the pressure, after a slight reorganisation with Ravi playing higher. Jack and Sam went two-on-one against South's keeper with Jack slipping the ball through to Sam who just squeezed it wide. With ten minutes to go, Ben, from behind the half way line, lifted the ball beautifully to Jack on the 25 yard line. He collected it and again went 2-1 on one with the keeper – this time Sam made no mistake, leaving Nomads with a 3-2 victory.