Last Tuesday the Men’s first team travelled to the Quays pool for their first match against long-time adversaries, Southampton City. City now have two teams, and we were playing their 2nd “Stingrays” team.

Given the result of the 2nd’s game against the Stingrays the week before, we knew that the team wouldn’t be easy to beat. The game started off badly, with Stephens bizarrely being majored after only 9 seconds play, giving a man-up that City duly converted. We were able to pull back level after a well-aimed shot from Divall, but then City returned with 3 goals only answered by a single goal from Redman. With 6 majors, this quarter was the messiest as the game got into its flow.

The second quarter, with us attacking the deep end, had the least action, and was our worst of the game. We were unable to effectively set up our attack, and conceded two goals with no reply, leaving the score at a disappointing 6 – 2 at half time.

In the third quarter, again attacking the shallow end, we were more effective in our attack – goals from Redman and Divall resulted from better awareness and teamwork, and fewer dropped passes. Unfortunately, City were able to score 3 of their own goals, leaving the score at 9 -4.

The final quarter saw the game slip away from us, with City putting away 2 final goals. Ricci was able to convert a deflected shot, but it wasn’t enough, with City finishing on a victory at 11-5.

During the game there were many majors on both sides, as the teams both had difficulty playing a clean game, especially under the new rules. We had 8 majors against us to the Stingray’s 5, however, a positive outcome was that our defence was slightly stronger than theirs under man up – we converted 2/5 chances while they converted 3/8 chances.

With a difficult match coming up against the City first team next week, we’ll be sure to be training  hard on our attack’s set up and man ups!

Scorers:
2 – Tom Redman
2 – Will Divall
1 – Andrea Ricci

Majors:
2 – Andrea Ricci
2 – Owen Stephens
2 – Tim Walton
1 – Connor Hogg
1 – Tom Redman