Yateley Flames met with some trepidation this Saturday at the windswept Aldershot Army hockey pitches. We all knew that, after a good run into Christmas at the back end of 2018 we had put the second half of the season at risk with a little too much Christmas turkey and Santa's sherry (those over 18 obviously) over the festive period. With a team of 15 though, we would have the legs against an AFHC 6s side sitting nearer the bottom of the table.

The game started well with YHCFs dominating the play utilising the front 5 and the young legs well against a rather slower and older back 3. 15 minutes in and AFHC broke well, overloading the back two with a fast midfield and YHCFs were 0-1 down. YHCFs scored back almost immediately with a great goal from Jacob Sealey (making his Mens debut!). It felt like end to end stuff for a further 10 mins and then when under pressure in the D YHCFs gave away a short corner and in the resulting play conceded another goal. The end of the first half was dominated by YHCFs accruing 3 or 4 short corners, none of which went in the back of the net so at half time a tired back 5 retired for the inevitable dressing down from Willie (sorry I mean inspirational team talk) to assess why we were indeed losing this game.

After a rather slow first 5 minutes from YHCFs and some in-D 'Great Escape' stuff from keeper Sammy Wenman, AFHC began to show why they were lower in the table and the front 5 for Yateley really started to work again. George Townley or Matt Carter controlled the central midfield shipping the ball well down to the left corner, allowing Josh Skinner and Oli G-J to make runs into the D or Darren Skinner wreaking havoc on the right. This opened up the defence allowing Josh Sealey and JC to own top of D and front of goal. AFHC6 conceded 4 goals in the second half courtesy of Lucas, JC, Jacob Sealey and Oli G-J to score 1 a piece and finish the game at 5-2. No doubt future games will be tougher as the season progresses.