A double bonus leading into this game for the home side. First, the ability to play this game on the 2nd team pitch at Spencer; a lush carpet of grass in complete contrast to the 3’s pitch on King George’s Park. Second, a massive squad of 19 players including four current or recent players from the Spencer juniors programme.

A better all round performance from the 3’s, against much better opposition in EG ‘A’. They were not blessed with a big squad, the minimum 10 in fact, but 10 decent players, so we had to make our numerical advantage count, and more importantly control possession of the lacrosse ball.

The opening exchanges set the pattern for the rest of the game. EG pushed out in defence and Spencer had to work hard just to keep the ball in attack. Any chance to get the ball inside their perimeter typically resulted in a shot and the pick of the day was the first senior’s goal for Raphael Jackson, playing short stick midfield due to the masses of long stick players in the squad. EG in attack were patient and looked to capitalise on defensive mistakes, either over-committing, or just getting out of shape. The Spencer defence held firm for large chunks of the game and the long-sticks won the battle against the athletic and sizeable EG attacking trio.

Back to the 19-man Spencer squad. It comprised of 1 goalie, 9 defence, 4 middies and 5 attack. So a little unbalanced. Brendan and Raphael switched to short sticks, and both played well in unnatural surroundings. The remaining 7 defenders rotated between close defence and LSM duties without too much confusion, bar two technical penalties for too many men on the pitch and the two occasions where key attack players ended up defending – for quite unknown reasons.

Spencer had the lead throughout and went into the final quarter 6-3 up. EG legs were tiring but they found a 10 minute golden period and scored twice. Their tails were up and Spencer had to avoid any panic, which they did, just enough to see the game home.

A superb win for the Spencer 3’s who next week have no game and next host London Uni (back on King George’s Park… boo, hiss) on Saturday 3rd November.

Spencer 3’s were;
Colin Byrne, Toby Rule, Jamie Muir Wood, Hugo Hobson, Chris Jones, Jobey Keene, Raphael Jackson (1 goal), Ben McLellan, Richard Morley, Brendan Callan (1), Gavin Park, Rob Gooch, James Sweetman (1), Jamie Weir, Andrew Mottershead (2), Dan Hilton, Nick Flew, Jason Byrne (2) and Jon Dodd