Sonning Men's 3s vs West Hampstead 4s

A week on from the legendary thrashing of their club rivals and Sonning 3s turned up to the meet with each member still grinning from ear to ear with the memory. All of the pregame talk was about how much you could read into West Hampstead’s emphatic loss to Tring the previous week and what that meant for the upcoming game. However, El Capitan was keen to ignore last week and concentrate on the team in front of us.

Early play showed that Tonk’s pregame speech was accurate, with Sonning 3s struggling to hold on to the ball beyond the first attack. Besides this, Sonning took the lead from another well earned short corner, excellently dispatched by Tim Preston.

Dispite the lead, Sonning still struggled at times, with West Hampstead skilfully playing the ball around and exposing the gaps that opened up. Sonning eventually conceded from the constant pressure but were quickly on the front foot and retook the initiative, finishing the half strong. Tonks finished off a strong team move to sweep the ball into the back of the goal to take the lead into half time.

The start of the second half showed Sonning holding their shape far better and enjoying a better spell of possession that the first half. In control of the game, and with lots of play in both halves, Sonning endeavoured to hold onto the lead and relied prominently on counter attacks to threaten the West Hampstead goal. However, West Hampstead really put the pressure on for the final 15 minutes and pressed Sonning all over the pitch. Sonning absorbed attack after attack, putting body on the line numerous times. Eventually the end of the game came and Sonning took all three points, keeping pace with the league leaders, Tring, in the early stages of the season.

Although it wasn’t the game the players were expecting, they showed great mental strength to win in an ugly game that they couldn’t quite get up the gears. Assessment by the captain identified the teams resilience as a key part of their win today and that’s going to be a key part of the rest of the season.

MoM – Gaz – Tireless performance and stepped up to the situation when asked to play in the back line. Personified resilience.

DoD – Peter Orchard – Not finishing the 3’s v 2’s match report