Petersfield Mens 2nd XI overcome Portsmouth 3s

A sunny Saturday by the sea, playing in the sand was what awaited Petersfield mens 2s for their second outing of the season. Almost idyllic but the sand in this case was on the Langstone astro turf which proved to be a challenging playing surface.

Petersfield won the toss and switched ends to take advantage of playing away from the sun. With a rejuvenated attack of Dan Cleife and Lee Harris Petersfield started an early press. Unusually for Peterfield we won nearly every 50/50 ball and constantly turned over possession to keep the pressure on Portsmouth who were defending stoutly, and who’s keeper made some outstanding saves.
Lee Harris opened the scoring with a crisp reverse hit strike to give Petersfield the lead. It was certainly not all Petersfield, and Portsmouth made several breaks putting pressure on our resolute defence. The tracking back of Henry Plewes was particularly impressive.

Dan Cleife’s weaving runs, and combination play with Rory Plewes and Josh Bardoe into the opposition’s dee resulted in a series of penalty corners for Petersfield, however we could not seem to inject the ball with any pace (sandy pitch). Our practiced injector, Dan Grinstead was on the side and after three failed short corners, super sub Grinny entered the fray. One more short corner, which we still could not inject, resulted in a goal. Dan Grinstead rebounded twice off the keeper before slotting it away. Lee Harris who seemed unaffected by the sand took another goal before half time taking Petersfield to 0:3 before the break.

Portsmouth spent a long time discussing tactics at the break which proved effective in the second half. They channeled their efforts through the middle of the pitch avoiding our pacy wide players. If not for the hard work of Nick Budden and Jed Temple in the centre things could have turned really bad. As it was, we conceded two goals to bring the score to 2:3 with 15 minutes to play. Lee Harris proved to be the difference, returning to the field to score quickly with another low crisp reverse strike into the bottom corner. Portsmouth fought to the end clawing another goal back. But Lee completed his haul of goals with a fine flick into the top right of the Portsmouth goal. The game ended 3:5 moving Petersfield 2nd XI to fourth in the table. Next week is out first home game of the season against Southampton 3s.