Tavistock A 1, Teign A 2

System 6-sponsored Teign A travelled to Tavistock for a top of the table clash in the rain. With the two sides evenly matched a close result was expected. Teign started well building from a solid defence and midfield to mount attacks down the flanks, while being aware of the threat from Tavvy’s speedy forwards. It soon became clear that the game hinged on Teign’s experienced defence preventing any goal scoring opportunities, which they did with great skill throughout the game.

Tavvy’s weakness is at the back where Teign constantly found space to exploit. Pete Brooks, Matt Hitchcock, Nathan Full, Jordan Hellier and Martin Battiscombe all putting in great shifts up front.

It was Brooks who broke the deadlock to put Teign ahead with a well-finished goal after good build-up play from the youngsters. A 1-0 half-time lead was hard earned as some over fussy and confusing decisions were causing problems.

Teign’s midfield were put under constant pressure with Dominick Spayne and Ross Thomson, Tom Price and Joss Chappell pushed to the limit.

Tavvy’s only real threat was from penalty corners where they eventually levelled the scores with a switch move. The latter part of the game was somewhat spoiled by some extraordinary umpiring decisions which saw Teign receive two green cards and a yellow one leaving them down to nine players at one stage.

It was during this period that Teign pulled a ‘rabbit from the hat’.

Over confidence at the back from Tavvy allowed Brooks to steal the ball from the last defender to sprint forward and score past the advancing keeper.

With only a few minutes left and back up to ten players Teign held on to win 2-1. The back four of Phil Wright, Gareth Francis, John Hodgson and Charlie Judge were the rock around which this important win was gained.