Hitchin at home, Prem - 29 Oct 2005

Purley's return to Sandilands has not got off to the best of starts, and things went from bad to worse when they faced Hitchin at the weekend.

Purley won the first face off and dominated possession at the beginning of the first quarter. However, Hitchin's defence was well organised, and though Purley created several shooting chances, none of them were clear cut. Hitchin eventually broke the deadlock with a well taken opportunity on their first shot of the game, and they continued to be clinical during the first quarter with 3 goals from 3 shots.

Purley were extremely ill disciplined during the first half taking about 8 penalties for silly fouls. Unfortunately for Purley, Hitchin's man up unit were working well and they converted from at least 4 of these opportunities, and Hitchin went into the break 7-3 up.

In the second half Purley started to cut out the silly mistakes, and began to claw their way back into the game. Well taken goals from Mike Barrett, Matt Payne and Tim Richmond seemed to settle the team. The defence started to communicate with each other and there was much more movement off the ball in attack. However Hitchin were keen to play the clock, and whenever they had possession they tried to eat up as much time as possible by holding the ball in a corner behind the Purley goal. A lack of urgency by Purley to get the ball back in the third quarter probably cost them the game, as their comeback eventually ran out of time with the game finishing 8-10.

Hitchin played good controlled Lacrosse and were the better team. It's just a shame that Purley didn't start with the urgency that they finished the game with as this would have been a thrilling encounter.

Goals: Dave Arnot 2, Mike Barrett 2, Matt Payne 2, Tim Richmond 1, Nigel Tasko 1

Photos by Steve Cluney and Jamie Tasko.