Report by: Peter Gallagher (Media Sec.)
Game: Southampton vs. Gloucestershire (26/11/17)

Hot off last weekend’s away win at Gloucestershire, SUWPC’s finest 12 were ready to come out on top once again. With 5 more players including Kiwi Sam and the great traveller Brian Cully back from his most recent expedition, we were looking strong.
Luckily, their team had suffered some losses including their number 14 that we know all too well from our previous meeting… So, an atmosphere of quiet confidence at the pre-match talk, as will be evident later.

The game began, and before the first minute was up Sam Wilmshurst scored the first goal of the match – keen to retain his man of the match status from last Friday. Sadly, Gloucester replied with a goal for them, and goals were exchanged pretty evenly for the first quarter.
Goals from Sam Ward, Anton, and back to back goals for Alejandro in the last minute ended the first quarter with a score of 5-3!

Leading by two goals, the talk focussed on holding our lead and tightening up our defence as nearly every attack left Chris in pit all defenceless with at least two players countering on us with Chris already occupied re-enacting a scene that could have come from Blue Planet with their pit player. Unfortunately, as we attempted to tune our defence, our attack suffered resulting in the quarter being 3-1. Ending the first half with SUWPC up 7-4!

The final half was started with confidence being three goals up and was well fought by both teams with the score for 6-5 for the half. But sometimes our confidence was our weakness… Confidence, or a stab in the dark, a shot came from one of their weaker players from beyond 7 meters… But Phil had even more confidence attempting a one-handed save that inevitably was conceded. Justifiably, dick of the day. Luckily the third quarter ended with a score of 10-7, retaining our buffer of three goals.

Gloucester found two quick goals at the start of the last quarter, narrowing the gap to 10-9. But we did what we do best, with Tom Bragg, Brian Cully, and Alejandro scoring goals to finish the game with another win with a score of 13-9!

Dick of the Day: Phil Cumner – you aren’t that good of a keeper…

Man of the Match: Chris Laurent – for a heroic display of wrestling in pit.

Goals:
Anton Stephan – 3
Alejandro Mifsud – 4
Sam Ward – 3
Sam Wilmshurst – 1
Brian Cully – 1
Tom Bragg – 1

Majors:
Chris Laurent – 2
Brian Cully – 1