Marlborough 5 - 1 Firebrands

Marlborough continued to build on their positive start to the despite despite the loss of John Bromley and captain Anil Sud. Marlborough were led well on the day by Will Radnedge who took on the captaincy role to great effect, despite forgetting who the opposition were during the 3 cheers at the end of the game.

Marlborough once again started the game well and took an early lead when Matt Osborne fired the ball into the bottom corner following some positive build up play. Marlborough continued their dominant performance but were hit on the counter when Firebrands equalised against the run of the play mid way through the half.

At this stage the game was evenly balanced, until one of the Firebrands players managed to talk himself into a yellow card following being originally shown a green for some fairly agricultural tackling. Marlborough executed the next 5 minutes to near perfection, retaking and then extending their lead to 3-1 thanks to goals from Rhys Davies and a lovely backhand finish from Alex Renwick.

Despite Firebrands returning to 11 players Marlborough continued to dominate the remainder of the half and took the score line to 4-1 thanks to a trademark Rich Holman "slider" finish at a short corner.

At half time the message was simple, nothing silly and the game was ours.

Marlborough started the 2nd half in a positive fashion and created lots of potential scoring opportunities which were unfortunately not able to be converted. This was until Captain Will Radnedge stepped up to "hammer" the ball home from all of 1 metre out.

Firebrands began to throw more bodies forward in the hope of salvaging something from the game but firm defending from Chris Jones and Will Hodge combined with a couple of saves from Brian Marnane meant the score remained unchanged.

The game somewhat petered out in the last few minutes following a couple of Firebrands players losing their discipline and receiving cards, this was a shame as the majority of the game was played in the right spirits and enjoyed by both teams.

3 wins from 3 and playing some great hockey on the way, it has been an excellent start for Marlborough which we will look to build on as we continue after our "mini break" with no game this weekend.

Man of the Match was awarded to veteran defender Will Hodge for his excellent positional play and numerous interceptions.

D*** of the Day was once again "awarded" to the unfortunate Rich Fynn for further reverse stick issues and "failing to following T-Shirt procedures", not the type of hat-trick anyone wants!