The set piece and a couple of fine saves from Finbar came to the rescue for the Men’s Dev side on Saturday, playing out a 6-6 thriller against Ashford.

In the kind of afternoon sunshine that would be perfect for a snooze, our boys were caught napping with some sloppy passes and lazy marking meaning we were staring down the barrel at 0-3 after 10 minutes.

This jolted the team into action, Chris first to react at two penalty corners to get us back in the game, before some smart work from Rohan and the returning Luca set up George for a simple finish. Nathan assumed the perfect poaching position at the back post for a tap in, while skipper JC smashed one hard and low to net his first PC goal in an illustrious career.

At the other end of the pitch, Paul and Gianluca made some great interventions. Finbar made a fine head-high save to a slap that was flying into the roof of the net, before thwarting Ashford’s strikers again, saving low down to his left when completely wrong-footed. One more goal from Ashford which fabulous Finbar couldn’t stop meant we went into the much-needed break 5-4 up.

After the interval, Chris completed his hat-trick with a fine sharp finish, before Ashford again reduced the deficit to one. With seven minutes to go, the visitors netted an equaliser from a penalty corner of their own to earn a share of the spoils. 6-6 and time for another lie down.

The boys did really well to get back into the game after the poor start. The midfielders and front men need to think about our shape when the opposition have the ball and ensuring we are tracking back to help our over-worked defenders.

Match report - Ankur Nangpal