Winchester Veterans 0 Petersfield Veterans 3: PETERSFIELD Veterans maintained their winning league run with a lacklustre performance against a well-organised Winchester side.

The away side started slowly and lacked the crispness of passing and running off the ball that had characterised their games the previous two weeks.

Cleife and Budden always looked dangerous going forward for Petersfield though and they won a handful of penalty corners which were all unconverted.

The visitors eventually took the lead when Cornett’s precise pass found Cleife, who crashed the ball past the Winchester keeper.

In the second half Petersfield re-organised, playing Budden up front with Williams moving into the centre of midfield.

This increased their dominance of midfield, but Winchester drew back in numbers and the well-organised defence coped well with everything that Petersfield tried to throw at them.

Wheeler had a thunderbolt cleared off the line after good work from Cleife, while Davis, Budden and Wheeler all had the ball taken off the end of their sticks when they looked likely to score.

The pressure eventually told when Cleife cleaned up a penalty corner to make it 2-0 to the visitors, and he then completed his hat-trick with a solo run before slamming the ball under the Winchester keeper.

Playing only one up front, Winchester had little to offer in attack, and the away side coasted for the last 15 minutes of the game.