Crickets 2nds slumped to their third defeat of the season at home last Saturday to West Dorset.

Ottery Crickets A 0

West Dorset 4

Crickets' 2nds slumped to their third defeat of the season at home last Saturday to West Dorset. The opposition, who were surprised at the size of their victory, scored two goals in each half and Ottery's four-game goal drought continued.

For the second weekend on the trot Crickets started the brightest. They passed and moved well, working hard to deny the opposition and won a series of shorts:

Luke Baker narrowly failed to convert a spectacular drag flick. As the half went on West Dorset took hold of the game, scored two goals, the first from short range, against the home team that too frequently gifted possession, lacked penetration in the final third and were too often second to the ball.

Through better use of the space and Ottery's failure to close it down, Dorset always seemed to have an extra man available to relieve the pressure

Ottery started the second half as they started the first, but Dorset's experience began to tell and they scored their third from a breakaway which was ended when Frood in the Ottery goal brought down the attacker as he moved across the D.

They converted the flick with confidence and added a fourth from a penalty corner.

Crickets came back into the game in the last 10 minutes, but by then it was too late.

Captain Jon Dutton led by example and was voted Players' Man of the Match.

The 2nds play their next home game on Saturday, November 6, ECV Hornets are the opposition.

Ottery Crickets B 3 vs Chard A 3

24/10/09

Ottery started brightly in this encounter at Colin Tooze and were unfortunate to go behind from a penalty corner goal, against the run of play.

Despite numerous attacks and penalty corners the young crickets side couldn't convert. However 10 minutes before half time the home side got the goal they deserved with a superb reverse stick effort from Jacob Tuckett.

Following half time Ottery started slowly as in previous weeks and paid the price for this by conceding two goals in quick succession. The Crickets side refused to let their heads drop and raised the tempo and embarked on numerous attacks. The tempers of the opposition flaired as decisions were given against them. For bad challenges and arguing decisions, Chard found themselves down to 9 men for the last 20 minutes with four players being sin binned at separate times. From one of these sin binning's for a bad challenge, Ottery were given a penalty stroke and Jacob Tuckett stepped up and confidently dispatched past the keeper for his second of the game.

Ottery continued to apply pressure and were awarded a penalty corner with just minutes remaining. Seb Acarnley injected, Nathan Spargo stopped and Jacob Tuckett drag flicked the ball towards goal which was well saved by the keeper, despite this Jacob Tuckett reacted first and dragged the ball into the top left hand corner of the net, past a despairing goalkeeper to complete his hat-trick and cap of his man of the match performance.

Credit must be given to the young side for this comeback and with the manner in which they conducted themselves throughout the game never reacting to the bad tackles or arguing with decisions given by the umpires.

Next week the young side face Minehead away.

Man of The Match: Jacob Tuckett