South Saxons 7 - 1 Crawley 2s

South Saxons 1s 7 - 1 Crawley 2s

Crawley had their longest journey of the season heading to what can only be described as suburb of France on a wet and windy day in November. They knew that this would be one of their toughest challenges yet as South Saxons were unbeaten only dropping 2 points all year. Captain Chris Rockingham took over the goalkeeping duties due to regular Chris White having a ballet show to attend.

The game started much as expected with South Saxons applying all of the pressure and forcing some good saves from stand in keeper Rockingham. Their breakthrough came inside 10 minutes when a short corner was awarded and a fine save from a Saxons drag flick could only see the rebound hammered past the helpless defence. Crawley couldn't settle and a mix up at the top of the D saw the ball fall to a Saxons defender to hammer the ball into the top corner of the goal. Saxons got another 2 goals through deflections in the D forcing saves for the rebounds to be put in. They then got a final goal from a short corner move before half time.

Captain Rockingham was not pleased at half time and made his frustration known to every player that was on the pitch. He wanted them to show some pride and play the simple hockey that has been successful for them in the past.

Crawley took this on board and were moving the ball better than the first half. They were creating a number of opportunities and winning short corners. The threat of Saxons was always there and with Crawley pressing they left themselves exposed at the back but Man of the Match Rockingham denied them with a diving save into top to right corner the highlight. Saxons scored another half way through the second half when a pull back across the D saw Ollie Robinson on his reverse deflect the ball into the Crawley net. Then a fine team move by Crawley saw them get one back through a cool finish by Dan Burnham. Saxons managed to get one more before the end of the game with a great finish in the bottom right of Rockingham's goal.

Chris Rockingham commented afterwards "We always knew it was going to be tough and getting off to the poor start that we did was never going to work out well for us. We have a number of players returning to our side next week so am hoping that we can put out a stronger performance against our local rivals Horsham"

MOTM - Chris Rockingham
DOTD - Kane Paterson

Team: Chris Rockingham, Ollie Robinson, Ian Berry, James Ortyl, James Fuller, Kane Paterson, Russell Hales, Tom Jarvis, James Murphy, Dan Burnham, Josh Haworth