Men's Otters vs Romsey 3

Otters 3 - 2 Romsey 3's (H) - Scorers : L Hampton, N Sparkman, M Redding

Romsey 3's finished third, just one position below us in the League last season - so we knew that this would be our sternest test of the current season so far. Stripped of Clarky on the night before the match and with three players making their league debuts, two of them playing their first adult matches, we weren't quite at our strongest, but we gladly welcomed Toby Rigby in goal for the second time this season.

Before the match we ran through penalty corner routines with Harvey Gault and Lennon Hampton taking control at the top of the D and Sparky and Alfie Latimore running in on the keeper and right post respectively. We put this work to good use as we looked effective from these set pieces throughout the match and scored from two.

The match started quite evenly, but Romsey quite soon started to have difficulty dealing with Harvey and Lennon in midfield as they moved the ball effectively and quickly, looking to spring our fast forward line who did excellently to constantly find space and create opportunity. 9 minutes into the match we scored our first with Romsey labouring to clear their lines after our short corner, Lennon snatched the ball from a Romsey defender, and with great calmness he picked his spot and finessed the ball into the back of the net for his first senior goal. It was a very impressive way to get off the mark.

Romsey came back at us hard, but again our midfield started to get on top, using possession wisely and with Henry Sheath distributing the ball well from his sweeping position, so that it wasn't too much of a surprise when in the 29th minute Lennon drove the ball into the D and picked out Sparky who slammed the ball into the backboards for his third of the season and a two goal cushion that we see us through to half time.

Towards the end of the first half we very nearly extended our lead to three goals when at another short corner the ball was returned to injector Mikey Redding with the goal at his mercy, but his scuffed shot was saved on the line.

At half time we discussed trying to be a bit more canny with the movement of the ball from our 16s, we'd been looking to move the ball out left through Dan and Howard Foster to make the most of Alfie's speed and control at left wing, but Romsey had read this and started to put a very tight press on us down their right hand side. Unfortunately in the very early stages of the second half we went left at a 16 again, Romsey won the ball and moved it quickly towards our goal and scored with only a minute of the second period gone.

However, although Romsey had the momentum, our midfield again became ascendant and in the 45th minute we had success with another penalty corner. This time Harvey moved the ball back to Mikey again who made no mistake this time to rack up his fourth of the season and give us a bit of comfort.

We very nearly got a fourth a few minutes later, Harvey fizzed a cross from outside Romsey's D straight past the right hand post but unfortunately Bertie Sykulski-Lawrence wasn't quite close enough to take advantage, which is a shame as it would have effectively put the game to bed.

Romsey started to get much more agricultural in their play and a crass and ugly tackle on Harvey saw one of their number deservedly green carded on the hour. Romsey pushed hard as our young side began to tire and Toby was called on to make a superb save at close quarters to keep our two goal advantage. But Romsey kept pushing and eventually with five minutes to go they scored their second with a player forcing his way through from a long corner and unfortunately a deflection off a foot put Toby off balance and unable to deal with the ball as it made its way into our goal.

The game, unsurprisingly, became a bit more heated as the clock ticked down and Romsey chased an equaliser, with the outcome that a Romsey player was fairly yellow carded in the 69th minute for foul language which was upgraded to a red card when he upped the ante to attack the umpire's integrity. When it was all sorted we only had a few seconds to see out before the final whistle gave us a fourth win out of five league games this season.

This was a very good display by the team, we were strong in defence with Freddie Pinson and Dan Foster working extremely hard, our midfield was very robust and our attack was sharp as we were very close to scoring five goals. The final scoreline flattered Romsey if anything. Our two young Otters debutants, Nathan Henderson and James Carstairs did not put a foot out of place and our core unit of Lennon, Harvey, Henry and Sparky were all on top form to give us a highly deserved victory.