Petersfield III 1 Portsmouth IV 3: PETERSFIELD Hockey Club’s men’s third team slipped to a 3-1 defeat against Portsmouth’s fourth team, who maintained their 100 per cent winning start to the season.
Despite losing, the young team performed well and could count themselves unlucky not to have taken at least a point from the game.
The early stages were even, with the Plewes brothers seeing a lot of the ball in midfield and most of the home team’s attacking threat coming from the direct running of Sam Gibbon on the right wing.
However, the elusive movement of Portsmouth’s youthful front line created spaces and on two occasions in the first half the Petersfield defence was breached with Edward Black in goal exposed.
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Field dominated possession in the second half, particularly when Nick Budden moved into the midfield to provide a bit more trickery.
A series of short corners were won but came to nothing. Max White also narrowly missed on two occasions when quick breaks split the Portsmouth defence.
The sucker punch came when the away team launched a quick attack of their own and Black was left helpless.
He then made two fantastic saves before White grabbed a late consolation by deflecting a hammered shot from Rory Plewes past the Portsmouth goalkeeper.