8 GOALS IN ROCHESTER ROUT

With players away, players injured, several off to the Heathens, captain away, vice-captain injured and stand-in captain Dan Blanchard poached then injured, the 5s could have only hoped for a respectable performance.

So playing away with a weakened team, we should play it safe, right? Nope. I tweaked the usual formation to go full attack.

The first goal came after about 5 mins. Not always a good sign as over-confidence can set in, but fortunately we scored another 3 to go 4-0 at half time.

While we can't remember all goals, the following lingered in the memory:
Just after the half time break, Charlie took a shot nearly on the base line, hit the defender's chest on the goal line, and Charlie took the stroke, with a lovely flick into the top right corner.
Paul Whitney got his long awaited first goal with the team, as hobbling James at right back ran it down the field, passed to Charlie running the base line, passed on to Paul B, and straight to Paul W on the P-spot and straight in to goal.
Ravi found himself in the middle of the pitch, took a long hit with pinpoint accuracy through the crowd, found Charlie in front of the goal and it was deflected around the keeper.

Ravi got injured, and our bench of one, went to a bench of none. The resulting position shuffle meant a very different look on the field. Paul W played at full back, with James at right back (as Nathan was umpiring). With Carney (nominally left back) making regular advances into the attacking D, on paper it must have seemed that we had little defence. Max helped out in centre mid.

With 5 minutes to go, Old W's got a short corner, the ball was lifted up and dropped on to the top of the backboard frame, lodged in the netting. It was well above backboard height on crossing the line, and should never have been awarded as a goal, despite our protests. The other team seemed to think that because it was 8-0, it shouldn't matter, but we should play fair, by the rules, no matter what the score is.

After recent poor form, and a death match next week against Folkestone, the 5s' focus had to be on the basics. Some improvements were made, but the match was partly gifted to us by an opposition development team that was too soft in tackles and too soft with passes.

Credit to Old Williamsonians who never gave up and we weren't able to benefit from a usual heads down at 3-0. Max won Man-of-the-Match (and a hat trick), but a special mention to Deeley who stood out in the backline (quite an effort to be noticed from there when the forwards score 8 goals).

A huge thanks to Zac and Nathan for umpiring and well umpired.

Thanks to Joni, Dan, Paul W, Ben and Ollie for offering to help out the Heathens at late notice (didn't all ultimately play, but offered to help) and to Jamie Cotgreave for the epic effort of organising the team this week. Thanks to Zac for assisting the Vets. A cordial welcome goes to Sully who played his first game with us.