Hawks 4s succumb to league leaders after positive start

On a more than blustery Saturday afternoon at BRN2, the Mens 4s were able to test themselves against the league leaders Newbury & Thatcham 2s to see how they have progressed over the past few years. It seems that having dominated our leagues over the past four seasons, we have now hit our ‘right’ level and most of our games this season have been tight affairs. Saturday was no different, but it was Newbury that prevailed and they showed a little more class and desire, disappointingly, than we did; a noticeable difference was the make of their team with few under 18s and no over 45s (unlike us).With Dave Cresswell bolstering our ranks, the 4s started well and scored from a broken down corner, with a rebound from Chris, soon followed up by our ‘guest’ with a rocket short corner. 2-0 up after ten minutes and things were looking rosy. However, this only spurred N&T in to action and they managed to turn things round very quickly due to some fast flowing play, but some awfully naïve defending, as we literally teed up chances for their strikers to rifle home four wide-open play goals. Well, that escalated quickly. HT: 2-4

We certainly pushed forward in the second half, as Newbury stepped off the gas somewhat, and although both teams had a couple of glorious chances to score, there were surprisingly no further goals. The game was well blown by Dick and Dawsey (that sounds like a cabaret act) and although dropping points for the second week running, we played a lot better than in previous weeks and managed to use the midfield a lot more. A testing game against Marlow next week to finish off the first half of the season, with Hawks holding onto fourth place in the table.