Marlborough 8 - 0 UWE

Marlborough entered the 2nd half of the season knowing that the needed to get back into the rhythm that saw them win their 6 opening games and that was exactly what happened. They knew from their last meeting with UWE that they had a strong spine to their team and so set up to force them into wide areas of the pitch and aim to pick them off as they played back into the middle of the pitch. This is exactly what they did as the controlled all of the early exchanges, looking like opening the scoring from wither a succession of penalty corners or when Matt Osborne's strike cannoned back off the post. In the end, Uwe held firm for over 10 minutes but eventually, the pressure told as Marlborough quickly raced into a 3-0 lead following goals from James Richardson, Matt Osborne and Rhys Davies.

This kicked UWE back into life and they began to have more possession inside the Marlborough half, trying to make use of their quick forwards in one-on-one situations, however, Marlborough were up to the task defending strongly and anything which did beat the backline was mopped up by the ever-excellent Aaron Holloway.

Marlborough managed to find the net a further two times through Rich Fynn and Anil Sud in the first half despite spending (Slightly more than) 5 minutes down to 10 men following a "disagreement" between Mark Ramage and the umpires.

Halftime arrived with the score at a comfortable looking 5-0 but with reduced numbers for the second half due to work commitments and injury it would need the bare 11 players left to see the game out, they did it in style.

Marlborough continued to dominate all facets of the game, with UWE spending the majority of the game either struggling to get the ball out of their own half or playing extremely speculative passes which went harmlessly over the baseline without ever looking like making a connection. By the end of the game, the scoreline had been extended to 8-0 through further goals from Rhys Davies, Rich Fynn and John Berry. The pick of the goals had to be Rich Fynn's fantastic deflection effort from excellent possession-based hockey and raking ball in from the left by Matt Osborne.

Marlborough finished the game in good spirits looking forward to a real test next weekend against high flying Swindon in a local derby game.

Man of the match was awarded to Alex Renwick, who despite not getting on the scoresheet, was at the heart of everything positive for Marlborough, pressing well to win the ball high and always looking a threat in possession.

D*** of the Day was 'awarded' to Rich Fynn for his circa 2014 hockey knowledge when attempting to take a "long corner", being students, the opposition didn't have a clue...