Hooker Runs Riot in Sunday Sunshine

A welcome break from two tough Saturday's gave the Mens 1's a chance to work on their plan B and judging by today's outcome it could well become plan A.

Two youngsters, Ben Rollett & Elliott Killington made their 1st team debuts and both showed great promise for the future. The former is maturing into a great decision maker and the latter linked up brilliantly with the regular 1st team midfield.

The playing staff must have read yesterday's match report as their response was perfect after going 1-0 down after 11 mins. They were willing to accept responsibility for their own errors and were better for it, with the senior pros dishing out some stern words to their team mates, rather than to the officials.

Gary Goodman and Jon Hooker were influential in the guard roles and as they started to understand their roles, they slowly started to dominate the midfield battle.

Just before the break the hosts really started to pile on the pressure, with some outstanding work from high forwards, Oscar Ancliffe, Pete Moralee & Ali Dalton. On 32 mins Hooker put away a clinical PC & Marlow were in the ascendancy.

Sam North was promoted into the midfield and after making a great lead into the circle, was fouled in the act of shooting and the crowd awaited the awarding of a stroke. Instead he clashed with the Woking keeper and went down with suspected concussion which stopped the game for a good 5 mins.

It was later concluded that he had simply fainted. A wasp sting to the nose just before the start of the game had obviously overloaded his already low pain threshold and this, combined with a lack of sunscreen, on a sunny October afternoon, was just too much!

The first half hour of the second half was pretty much one way traffic. Marlow grew in confidence & totally dominated every area of the pitch. Hooker was loving his new role and thoroughly deserved his MOM, not just for his goal scoring attributes, but for the offensive, defensive and leadership roles that he contributed.

Wokings frustrations grew & one individual decided he couldn't cope with Chris Land's skill level and just rugby tackled him off the pitch.

Hooker dispatched 3 more corners while Woking took advantage of some individual errors to leave the score at 4-2 going into the last 4 mins and everyone thought it was game over.

2's defenders, Neel Sood & Ed Dillon had done fantastically well and when Marlow's coach, decided to give them a rest in the closing stages, Woking took advantage. 2 goals in as many minutes saw the game go to strokes.

Marlow were well prepared for this and after hours of Thursday rehearsal, they were going to do well to lose. Pete Harding dispatched his second stroke in as many days and then Hooker, Alex Land, Gary Goodman & Sood all scored to leave immense pressure on Woking's 5th stroke. Boyd Dercksen in the Marlow net took his opportunity to be a hero saving brilliantly to book MHC M1 into round 2.