Soton biggest boys vs Surrey (H)

After watching the girl’s demolition job the boys lined up for a much tougher game against a Surrey side who, despite our collective hopes, had replaced last years seniors and best players with a couple of giant South Africans. An unideal start and the first quarter proved to be a tight affair dominated by exclusions for the home team and some superb man down defence. It looked like Captain Finn would get his wish of a first quarter clean sheet until with 15 seconds on the clock a shot trickled in at Luke’s near post to give surrey a 1-0 lead.

The second quarter was similarly tight, a quick goal apiece as Dalton fired in from range made the score 2-1 within the first 2 minutes as the game quickly descended into anarchy, elbows were thrown, trunks pulled down, and many a major was missed but, despite Surrey eventually having one of their number shown to the corner for a particularly vicious headlock, they scored again and extended their lead to 4-1. A hectic quarter looked to be winding down to a well needed rest when Finn put one in from wing to narrow the first half deficit.

Quarter 3 began and Mr Wilkes wasted no time in finding form and the back of the net pulling us back within 1. Surrey and the South Africans fired back scoring a well worked goal into Pit before Dalton spun circles round his man and scored forcing the defender to be subbed out and spend the rest of the game on the bench (legend says he was still dizzy). In the final attack of the quarter woody leapt high out of the water (definitely not pushing off the shallow end floor) and played the ball off to Ed for his second of the quarter.

The final quarter began, the score was 5-5, life was tense. Surrey scored, 5-6. Finn hit back, 6-6. Then, with a performance worth of beating Cillian Murphy to Best Actor, the opposition captain took ours out of the game, diving under the water and earning a baffled Finn a kickout and wrapping. The match became a 2-man battle, our very own Sam Dalton trading goals with Surreys star fresher. With 20 seconds on the clock the Surrey man landed the final punch skimming a shot past Luke and putting surrey 9-8 ahead with no time to respond.

The full-time score of Majors: 19, Goals: 17 still did not manage to do justice to what was a hugely physical contest. We make the return to Surrey next weekend and will be looking to turn the tables.

Man of the Match: Ed Wilkes, getting better week on week off the wing.

Dick of the Day: Ed ‘Johnny’ Wilkinson for his cone kicking abilities.

Player Goals/Majors

Luke Bennalick 1/0

Sam Dalton 2/4

Ed Wilkes 1/2

Finn Thomas 3/2

Jack James 0/0

Woody Cho 0/0

Ben Lynch 2/0

James Popple 0/0

Alex Wilmshurst 1/0