Men's 2nd XI Vs West Bridgford 5

A very cold and frosty pitch welcomed South looking to get revenge after an opening day defeat to West Bridgford. In the absence of skipper Alex Cavan, Mark Willey wore the armband and after a delay for an umpire pitch inspection, lead his side out.

South started well, with the youngsters in the middle dovetailing well to move the ball up through midfield, but the experienced WB centre back had a strong stick and was able to make continuous tackles and interceptions and feed the WB CM to launch dangerous counterattacks. It was from one such counter that a very good defence splitting pass from deep that saw a WB run onto and fire past Simon Recaldin in the South goal. And despite continuing to dominate the attacking play, WB did it again 5 minutes before the half for a similar goal.

Disappointingly down 2-0 at the half, Willey's teamtalk at the half emphasised working the ball round rather than trying to force it through the way we had most of the first 35. After coming back out South were far more effective and matched that with excellent defending when they needed to, with Ben Walker in particular strong in stopping WB attacks and laying the ball up to the midfielders. Sadly South for all their possession and shorts won weren't able to carve out many clear chances to put the ball past the big WB keeper and in the end it took a moment of magic to pull one back for South. After a long ball was played up to Mike Shapland on the left of the D, he jinked inside and from a tight angle unleashed a rocket past the ear of the keeper into the top near corner. South came alive and began to really lay seige to the WB goal now, believing they could get something. Unfortunately a couple of very close chances late on, including a bullet from the skipper that just hit the wrong side of the post couldn't produce the equaliser.

The 1-2 final was a little unfair on South who worked incredibly hard on a Baltic evening and face another tough game next week against second in the league but it will be an excellent opportunity for them to bounce back.