Result : Southgate 6 – 0 East London
Match Report : Todd Lomas
The Mens 3s triumphant season resumed in usual flair after their week off. A cancellation last week due to East London 2s feeling poorly or terrified or both, meant that this week the 3s were raring to go and hit the ground running against the poorly little lambs’ 3rd team.
After a ferocious first 10 minutes from the boys in Red and Black, Chris Debonnaire put the ball between the posts with a quick rebound on his reverse after his dragflick was saved. Then, the ball didn’t particularly leave our attacking half for the rest of the first half. The one time it did enter our 25, the ball fizzled off the back line and East London were clearly still awestruck with their first entrance into our 25 that Andy Richardson was able to put a bullet like hit up to the top right corner for Todd Lomas to run on to, carry into the D and roll onto Vivek Dongha who deftly received on his back foot and slipped into the goal on his reverse, giving it the old no look through the keeper and defender.
The opposition backline were begging for help each 16, and the only result they’d have is the ball bouncing into midfield, where our midfield guardians would promptly inform them they were not going forward so the ball went back to the defenders and the cycle began again. With Debs and Todd leading the front line, The Mikes (Collins and Gorgin) were able to bolster up the front line taking it in turns to be the third forward in a trio that was partly responsible for leading the East London Lambs to the slaughter (despite metaphor, no players were harmed, they were nice people to tell the truth).
It wasn’t just the forwards who were enjoying dominance, the midfield of Alex Gibson, Jackson Trathen, Vivek Dongha and Ben BC were playing at top form, receiving the ball from the back, rolling their man and feeding in their teammates, especially Tom Murphy and Sam Marshall who were both streaming up the wing from left/right back like greyhounds in the stadiums of yesteryear. With this melting pot of talent in the face of the part timers who stood in our way, we quickly scored another goal after a sliding pass up the wing from Tom Murphy, Alex Gibson carried into the D and with his usual panache, passed a flat pass into the bottom corner.
The second half started with gusto and standards did not drop from our boys, who won every 50/50 and plenty short corners, which would have increased the score line by at least 4 if East London didn’t have Alistair Cook and Andrew Strauss on the posts for every short corner, who both valiantly batted away dragflick low and high. After one of Tom Murphy’s flicks, the ball fell to Ben BC who reversed it toward the goal, only to be stopped by a protruding gut of the opposition defender, then dropping onto the line and cleared.
Play was stopped to double check the call for a penalty flick, however the umpires didn’t have a clear line of sight so it was a 16. Despite the decision being…slightly wrong, we didn’t appeal as we new there would be ample chance to have a 4th bite at the cherry. We were correct. The next advance into the 25 from Alex Gibson went zig and zag from baseline to the D, onto a defender foot every other step, and with a beautiful advantage played by the umpire, Todd was able to collect from Alex and drill a hit near post to bring the score up to 4-0.
After honing in on the pass to their right back the whole game, Debs stepped in front of one of the passes and carried on his reverse into their 25, and into the left shoulder of the D where he slid a reverse stick hit into bottom right from an impossible angle. Debs’ hattrick was actualised when we were awarded another short corner, where he flicked it between the post man and keeper, making the score 6-0.
An easy and enjoyable game yes, however not just due to the weakness of the opposition. The fortitude and confidence of our Mens 3s was impressive, it was quality umpiring from Joergen and Will, and a respectable spirit from both teams to not resort to fouling when the score line was polar.