Mongooses Take Gritty 1-0 Win

Mongooses 1 – 0 Old Reigatians M3

The Mongooses did well to come away from this one with a narrow, hard-fought win. It was a scrappy but competitive affair, and it could easily have been a draw or even a loss on a different day.

We were probably a bit rusty after the Christmas break and tended to be quite narrow going forward. It was a shame we didn’t manage to use our wide options better given we had arrived with a squad including at least four regular wingers! We weren’t short of attacking opportunities, but we struggled with our finishing and accuracy. This was compounded by the Old Reigatians’ game plan which seemed to be to keep most of the team back in defence and hit us on the counter-attack with long balls to a couple of pacey players up front. 

Chris Ralphs scored what turned out to be the only goal of the game from the penalty spot and we showed plenty of Mongoose tenacity and grit in holding onto that lead as we came under real presume in the last third of the game. Our youngsters all did well, with Fynn T deserving his POM reward with some key saves. The commitment level across the team was exemplary… it wasn’t our tidiest performance but we did what we needed to in the end.

The game was played in a good spirit, bar one unnecessary flare-up by an OR’s player which was swiftly dealt with by Matt Anderson, who put in another excellent umpiring stint. We had terrific home support too, led by our very own Back-to-Hockey contingent – thanks!

Scorer: Chris Ralphs

POM: Fynn T