Swindon 3rds 1 - 4 North Wilts

The day had finally come for the threes to go head to head against high flying local side North Wilts. There was no pressure on the Swindon team with North Wilts having it all to lose given the fact they were unbeaten and hadn't conceded a goal so far this season. There was no need for a team talk really, we knew what this meant to both clubs and everyone was switched on. Moral was also boosted with the return of Deep Reyatt to strengthen the back line.

North Wilts started the game better than Swindon while the home side tried to work out the best way to mark the visiting team. The first goal of the game came about a third of the way into the first half for North Wilts through a short corner. The ball was injected to the top of the D where it was struck. It was not the greatest contact ever but was enough to get past the wandering Dec Cullen guarding the keepers left post.

The game settled down with both teams sharing possession with the occasional break past the 25 yard line. A Swindon equaliser soon followed with Phil Scarisbrick making a tackle, nudging the ball through the legs of the North Wilts defender and calmly passing it around the approaching North Wilts keeper, setting up Mark Young for his first goal since his return to hockey and making it the first goal conceded by North Wilts this season.

North Wilts regained the lead soon after though with a ball being fired in to the D hard from the right. A North Wilts attacker and Will Porter both went for the ball, subtly changing its direction resulting in the ball ending up in the bottom left of the goal.

Not much separated the two teams again and before long, the half time whistle was blown. Not only does keeper Tom Kerslake have a loud mouth on him, he's good a picking up quieter noises too, such as hearing North Wilts chat (while changing ends) suggesting they need to improve movement off of the ball; and this they did. They came out harder in the second half, forcing a double diving save from the Swindon keeper.

Movement off of the ball again resulted in North Wilts gaining their third goal of the game. A reasonably long diagonal was put through to a loan attacker to the top right of the D. The Swindon keeper came out but was wrong footed by the attacker, who turned to his left and clinically finished under pressure and with a bit of angle to negotiate with too.

Again there was a long period of stalemate between the two teams with the occasional moment of getting past the 25 yard line. Swindon were awarded a few short corners throughout but failed to convert. North Wilts soon struck, again through movement off of the ball. The goal came with a ball being fired across the D from the right, whilst on the other side of the D, another North Wilts attacker wrong footed a Swindon defender leaving himself free to receive the incoming ball and put it into the top left corner of the net.

This week the team put on a much better performance; a stark contrast from last week. We pushed harder, passed better and maintained a much better frame of mind. We knew this was going to be a difficult game We are a third team and we gave a first team a decent run for their money. Although The four goals which were scored by North Wilts were well executed, the scoreline doesn't really reflect our efforts. We must take these positives and what we did in this game to Yate next week, who like us have recently seen a slight dip in form. There is nothing stopping us from getting something from that game!

No prizes for guessing who's hamstrings gave in again..... Cheers Dec Cullen!