MK2 2-0 Wallingford 1

Off the back of two promising but ultimately humbling defeats in the opening fortnight of the season, MK 2s were eyeing this fixture as one that they could plunder the points on.

A teamsheet that was missing such goalscoring titans as Brazier, Breuilly (who found his level by bagging a hattrick for the 3s) and the mercurial talent of Sibson (who is still nursing a gunshot wound from the opening day of the season) was still strong with the young Vaughn Watson looking to make amends for missing from 2 yards last week on his home debut.

In the autumnal afternoon heat, the sides got underway with MK pressing high, an early card for Wallingford gave MK the upper hand for a 5 minute period, soon the new found (and frankly surprising to everyone involved) slickness of the MK transfer started to take its toll and the high pressing of the forward line, particularly Callum Clarke, Lewis Jobbling and Vaughn Watson giving the opposition defence a real headache. The result was to allow Toby King to find the net and extend his lead in the goal tally stakes with a decisive strike past the Wallingford keeper who, for one of the few times that day, was actually near his goal line rather than patrolling somewhere near the 23.

More of the same energetic running from the midfield and forwards combined with trademark casual jogging from Carl Morris who gave the Wallingford left hand side a real hard time, it was soon 2-0 with Martin Kavanagh smashing in a similar (but in an arguably inferior) fashion to Toby’s goal, well worked down the left and then with his back to goal dispatching past the keeper.

Wallingford started to push towards the end of the half and a couple of solid saves from Nick Gage kept it to 2-0 at halftime. The focus of the chat at the break centred around the fact that although the going was comfortable, MK needed to come out and boss the second half or risk letting their hard work from the first half be entirely in vain.

In standard 2s style though, this was completely ignored and MK almost the entirety of the next 35 minutes camped inside their own half - right up against it. A succession of short corners and some tasty challenges meant that for much of the half MK played with 10 but held firm – mainly thanks to a Man of the Match performance from keeper Gage.

MK broke away a few times and, in an inspired bit of craft, Paul King played a “beautiful” and “textbook” ball off the post for young Vaughn Watson, who, clearly unhaunted by the daemons of last week’s horrific miss, beautifully controlled the ball with both of his feet before dispatching with aplomb – if only the umpire had approved.

Another wasted opportunity occurred when a shelled in ball hit Jack Luther on the foot. The forward seemed to have forgotten that the sport today was Hockey and not Lacrosse as he waved his stick around above his head. MK were hoping these opportunities would not come back to bite them.

In the final 10 minutes Wallingford took off their keeper, who had had delusions of being a kicking back all game anyway, and with MK once again down to 10 men, MK found themselves essentially two outfield players down but despite this maintained the clean sheet and could have made it 3-0 if they could string any kind of counter attack together.

Teas and beers were had and all of the team in the clubhouse agree that Sam needs to work on his chivalry and not be ashamed to introduce Gertrude to the team.

MoM- Nick Gage for having properties similar to a bricked up goal
DoD – Vaughn Watson – endless energy (26000 steps on his fitbit on a non-sport day according to his mum - make of that what you will) but that double foot could never be excused.