Salisbury Men’s 1s hosted Poole this week with a quick start from the home team implementing a last-minute change to the formation. The novel managerial decision saw the team play a new 4-3-2-1 formation.

The game started and a fast early goal put the 1s one up, shortly followed by a fast counter from Poole that saw the score 1-1 and it looked like it was going to be a close game and long afternoon. But all thoughts of drawing were out of the mind when three more goals when in for Salisbury who finished the 1st half 4-1.

A must win game and vital 3 points were the motivation at half time, the message was to see out 35 minutes and manage the gameplay, but Salisbury delivered much more than that.

The second half went almost identically as the first. Poole attacked several times but could not convert, while fast passes and good link up play put 3 more goals in for Salisbury. The end result was 7-2 in the home team’s favour with hat-tricks for MOM Chris Pearl and Kynon Griffin-McCann and another goal from Mac Stevenson.

After welcoming back Aoife Lawrence and Nic George from the Masters World Cup, together with the return of Hannah Cornish and Alice Goodthwaite, Salisbury Ladies 1s had a strong squad available.

Salisbury started well, but a loose defensive pass in the D left keeper Lou Davidson with no chance against a clinical forward. Salisbury continued to work hard off the ball but it was Fareham who got the second of the game shortly before half time.

Salisbury knew they were not out of the game and in front of the fantastic support of a large home crowd they came out buoyed for the second half. Lily Jackson injected speed and purpose into the forward line and her hard work was rewarded with a neat reverse stick finish to put Salisbury back in the match with 20 minutes left. Salisbury continued to pile on the pressure and create scoring opportunities and equalised through a Hannah Cornish strike. With end-to-end play, battling in defence, fine one on one saves, and outstanding teamwork, Salisbury held on for the draw in a nail-biting finish.

The Ladies 3s lost a competitive game against Romsey 2s 3-1, before their co-captain Miranda MacTaggart jetted of to New Zealand for the Masters World Cup with the England over 65’s.