Petersfield II 3 Salisbury III 4: PETERSFIELD Hockey Club’s men’s second team slipped to a 4-3 defeat against Salisbury’s third team on Saturday.

This turned out to be a classic game of two halves.

It was raining from the start, and Petersfield soon found themselves under pressure with an early shot from Salisbury hitting the post after only three minutes.

Petersfield retaliated and went close themselves with one of their own attempts coming off the post.

After 17 minutes the Salisbury pressure paid off after a save by Broadmeadow was followed up by a second shot which put the visitors 1-0 up.

From the restart Petersfield immediately went on the attack and almost equalised, but it was Salisbury who scored three minutes later with a breakaway goal which doubled their lead.

Despite some good link up play on the left and a narrowly missed shot from a short corner, Petersfield fell further behind after 27 minutes when a short corner was converted at the other end by Salisbury.

The Petersfield team emerged for the second half with a slightly changed formation.

After ten minutes of fairly even play it was Petersfield who started to come out on top. Some good work through the middle resulted in an excellent save from the Salisbury keeper, which was followed up well and put into the Salisbury net by Plewes.

Six minutes later, with Salisbury down to ten men following a green card, Petersfield were awarded two short corners within a minute. McDermott scored a well-worked second goal to make it 3-2.

Salisbury rallied and five minutes later they restored their two-goal advantage with a goal from a short corner.

Petersfield were not done yet and continued to press the Salisbury defence and were awarded a string of short corners as they went close to scoring on a number of occasions.

With the minutes ticking down Petersfield were finally rewarded with a third goal from King from another well-worked short corner.

Petersfield pressed hard for the equalising goal but were thwarted by the final whistle.