Buckingham 1 East Grinstead 3

On Saturday Buckingham hosted East Grinstead at Stowe. It was the home side that started well and dominated the opening exchanges but a lapse on defence and a swift counter, led to the visitors opening the scoring with their first attack after six minutes. Buckingham continued to have far the better of both territory and possession but despite this, they struggled to create any real, clear cut openings. After twenty-eight minutes, a contentious decision meant the visitors were awarded their first and only penalty corner of the match. Although the initial strike and rebound were well blocked, the ball fell kindly for an East Grinstead attacker who slotted home from close range and the home side somehow found themselves 2-0 down at half time.
Buckingham regrouped at the break and came out firing on all cylinders at the start of the second half. After some fine incisive passing involving player of the match Lauren Thomas, Phoebe Richards finished smartly into the top corner on two minutes, to make the score 2-1. Buckingham were now firmly in the ascendency and pushing for an equaliser but another defensive error, this time on an missed overhead, gifted the visitors a third with forty-two minutes gone. The home side immediately went back on the offensive and a fine move involving an Alex Naughalty deflection forced a smart save from the visiting goal keeper, just five minutes later. With Buckingham once again enjoying the lions share of possession and territory they came close to reducing the deficit on fifty minutes when a fine run from Lottie Porter saw Eloise Laity’s back hand volley sail just high and wide. Buckingham continued to push hard until the end of the match. They created a couple of half chances and were unfortunate not to be awarded at least a couple of penalty corners but it was not to be as their eight game unbeaten run came to disappointing and slightly frustrating end.

"It was a pretty frustrating result but in may ways it was another good performance. We handled the ball very well and played with very good tempo but we just did not create enough chances from all the territory and possession we enjoyed, which is something we will look to address in the week. We also made some very costly errors on defence which just reinforces the fact that we need to remain diligent and switched on for the whole 70mins. The result just shows how tight the league is this year and we are fortunate that due to other results, this defeat did not cost us too much in terms of league position. Although we dropped one place, we remain in the top 4 and are still only two points off the top two."