Men's 3rd XI Finally Under Way

South's match report says that they were hopeful we would be somewhat out of condition and rusty after two blank weeks, and I was frankly very nervous for the exact same reason. However, such hopes and fears turned out to be misplaced as we came away from our first outing with three very good points and what I am told was a more than encouraging performance.

I knew it must be near the end by the time I arrived, because Rob was stood on the sidelines with his day's work done. We were 2-0 up by this stage, thanks apparently to a very strong first 35 minutes. Unfortunately I missed all of that, and my entire experience of the match was standing in the pissing rain listenting to Rob grumbling about our second half performance. To be fair it was not great, which we all acknowledged, but on the plus side the disappointment was that we had not managed to continue to do all of the very good things we had been doing in the first half.

South began the game clearly determined not to come second in the "big feller in goal" competition, and duly dispatched our erstwhile colleague Sean between the posts. Meanwhile further upfield there were some familiar faces from last season's championship winning 4th XI, and it was clear that this South 5th XI was going to be stronger than last season's. However, Nomads had reinforcements of our own, with Leo making a welcome debut alongside Charlie, Luke, Julian, Chris and Will, all of whom helped give the side a good youthful appearance, not to mention Ellis "no longer junior but not about to pick up his pension any time soon". With Muncey, Furlong and Hanlon having a combined age greater than the rest of the team put together, this provided the perfect balance and Nomads were soon into their stride, rolling out the passing game which had brought success for the last season and a half.

I cannot provide too much further detail because I am frankly making all of this up as I go along, but with Jez and Chris controlling midfield, and Hoddo and Dan holding together the back along with Rob, Nomads began to pour forwards down the flanks and to create chances for our May and September strike force. No goals today for our returning World Cup hero, but Chris eventually played in Ellis who put it away for 1-0. The same combination repeated the trick soon after for 2-0, though one of those was something of a duffed shot which just happened to end up on the end of Ellis's stick. No shame there Chris, everyone knows that Ian Botham took 383 Test wickets, but no-one can now recall how many were half-trackers slapped straight into midwicket's waiting hands. So Snow to Maloney it is and Nomads two to the good.

The second half was indeed less impressive, with the arrival of the skipper on the sidelines apparently doing nothing to provide any additional stimulus to anyone to show the skipper what they could do. Maybe it is something to do with me not being able to drop anyone. However, as more than one person observed, we seemed to stop moving it wide quite so effectively, and dropped into our bad habit of getting over halfway and then heading straight for the top of the D. All very nice to defend against, and we seemed to be constantly having to battle through a couple of defenders to get a shot away rather than managing to stretch them and create clear cut openings. But I'll take 2-0 and half of a very good performance after our three week lay-off, and frankly I would have bitten the hand off anyone offering me that before the match. All this and the skipper set to return next week, and there is plenty to be optimistic about.

Above all, it was great to be finally playing hockey again, and a hugely encouraging first league outing. Let's focus on the excellent first half performance, and keep on rinsing and repeating that until March.