PETERSFIELD Ladies 1s held on for a well-deserved 1-1 draw away to Havant Ladies 3s.

An intense style of play was the key to Petersfield’s success in a match that provided some thrilling entertainment.

The first half was a display of dominant possession from a well-structured Petersfield side clearly revelling in the return to competitive action.

Adapting quickly to the new springy pitch at HMS Temeraire in Portsmouth required enduring concentration, but Petersfield started convincingly with rapid passes between the midfield trio of Forrest, Bardoe and Easton.

After nine minutes Forrest instinctively released Eames on the right and her opponent had no answer to her acceleration. Blasting down the channel, she cut in to execute a pinpoint pass for Hedges to slot home the first goal.

Robertson’s jab tackles consistently broke the flow of Havant’s play and she kept finding Donovan and Walton on the wings.

A series of pressurising attacks resulted in some wonderful opportunities for Anna O’Kelly and Hedges. O’Kelly’s deflection was nudged wide by former Petersfield keeper Jones and Hedges had a tremendous strike on goal rebuffed.

Easton kept dispossessing the Havant forwards and picking up balls to drive the game deep into their half and open up space for Walton to use.

Eames sent some delightful bounce passes to O’Kelly as Petersfield endeavoured to increase their lead, but Havant broke down the attacks and drove the ball high on the counter.

Belinda Jones spent the match shadowing Havant’s feisty winger, who eventually exploited a small gap and set a team-mate free to smash the ball past Alex O’Kelly to level the match.

Forrest excelled with an audacious display of trickery and Bardoe was a constant thorn in the side of Havant’s vexed midfielders by feeding the ever-threatening Donovan.

In the second half Havant started to give the impression they may have the edge in endurance but tried in vain to puncture the defence of Jones, Llewelyn and Sebastian-Todd.

Llewelyn spoiled many attempts at shots on goal and tidied up at the back when required, while Sebastian-Todd anchored herself to her opponent and managed to isolate her by depriving the attacker of options.

With eight minutes to go there was a spate of attacks inside the Petersfield D and a plethora of short corners.

Goalkeeper Alex O’Kelly neutralised the potential threat from Havant by organising her defence to disrupt multiple injections from short corners and deny seemingly certain goalscoring opportunities during a relentless late onslaught.

A last-minute counter-attack by Petersfield was beautifully orchestrated by Easton. She found Hedges, who laid it off to Bardoe, and after a rapid scan of the options she picked out Eames, who unleashed a reverse stick attempt that was deflected off a foot for a final short corner. Petersfield could not convert it but were satisfied with their performance and were not unhappy to have held on for a draw.