4th Team Vs Bloxwich 4

Basking in the luxury of having a squad of 14, including Jack Tolley playing his first game for us and the returning Dave Parnham, we took to the pitch with some confidence and expectation. However for large parts of the first half it was the same old dross, frustratingly lacking the cohesion we need to get the ball forward and threaten our opponents' defence.

It was as usual the 4th team defence who stood solid and kept us at 0-0, although Bloxwich missed a couple of very good opportunities.

Our best chances came from penalty corners - Ray hit the post and Jack almost converted at the far post.

In the second half we survived a bit of an onslaught for about 10 minutes probably due to subbing defenders on and off, but as the half wore on we made more forays into the opponents half. Ray tried to swallow the ball at one point and had to go off to clean up the resulting blood.

Our goal came from a penalty corner which turned out to be the last play of the game. In an incredibly astute piece of captaincy we surprised Bloxwich with a short injection to Dave Parnham who drilled the ball to the back post. With Jack closing in the Bloxwich defender panicked and played the ball into his own goal.

It was harsh on Bloxwich who had played well, but there's no room for sympathy in the cut and thrust of division 10 NW.

Man of the match today: Dave Parnham. He also becomes top scorer this season with 1.