A drawn out draw

12 Marlborough B players faced an initial hunt for parking spaces at Dorcan Academy, a netball tournament meaning that it was beyond busy. The team was a good mix of juniors and seniors with the resulting melding of speed and experience showing from the starting whistle. The first half was fairly even, Marlborough managing to keep quite a bit of possession and string together a lot of passes. Towards the end of this first half, a 16 yard hit, poorly taken by one of the more senior members of the team, resulted in North Wilts making a quick counter attack and just squeezing the ball past the Marlborough goalie to go 1-0 up. At half time, Mark Banham, Tim Horton and Wayne Cranstone gave the team a pep talk whilst the captain was 'chatting' to the umpires about a free hit they had awarded to the opposition in direct contradiction to the FIH rule book. Whatever they said must have sunk in as, just after the second half started, Will Bishop received the ball and went on a blistering run towards the opposition circle and won a free hit just outside. A quick one two between Banham and Patterson led to a ball into the circle which was coolly put away by Cranstone, putting him in top scorer position for the season so far. After getting this equaliser, Marlborough took their foot off the gas slightly and as a consequence were unable to get any more goals, the game ending in a 1-1 draw. The Marlborough Captain was gratified to receive an apology from the umpiring team for the incorrect decision in the first half.