Trojans remain at the top after 8-3 win over Winchester

There were no surprises at Stoneham Lane on Saturday as Trojans swept aside Winchester as part of their 100 per cent win record to keep them 11 points clear at the top of South Central Premier Div 1 with five games remaining.

The home team spent no time sizing up their visitors and taking full advantage, Giles Hocking diverting a hard-hit pass on four minutes and Ben Frost planting a penalty corner on seven.

After the initial shock, Winchester recovered their composure and spent time in the opposition half, largely through the skilful but often isolated, Will Leyland.

One foray led to a Winchester penalty corner which Mark Maunsell converted to bring the score back to 2-1 and a brief thought that Trojans might be vulnerable.

Winchester's Seb Eaton, who kept the damage to a relative minimum. (Image: Jon Player)

Meanwhile, Winchester's defence fought bravely with the surging Trojans attacks, Matt Kenyon pulling off a string of vital last-ditch tackles and interceptions.

But Sam Mackenzie from a penalty corner, Oakley Sparshott-Thompson from a reverse strike and then Kai-Ren-Wong with a push to the far corner took the game away from Winchester in a three minute blast to leave then 5-1 down at half time.

Winchester, short of key players, could have crumbled but remained competitive, notching up the first goal after the break when Maunsell converted a penalty stroke.

This proved another false dawn as Trojans piled on the pressure.

Three further goals from Will Stange, a second for Hocking and a second for Frost were interspersed with some stunning goalkeeping from Winchester's Seb Eaton, who kept the damage to a relative minimum.

With Winchester reduced to nine men for the remaining few minutes, they found the resolve to grab a third goal courtesy of Leyland, who touched George Allmark's forward pass past the advancing keeper.

Winchester, second to bottom of the league, face bottom side Fareham 2nd XI this coming Saturday, and then third to bottom Slough the following week.

These fixtures will determine their survival.

Southampton Veterans 5 - Winchester Wanderers 3

A trip to Southampton, who are second in the league, was always going to provide a challenging match, and Wanderers arrived with a depleted team of nine.

Southampton kindly lent us a player to make it 10 a side so extra space was liable to make it an open game and so it proved.

Much as with last week's game with Epsom, the opposition play was dominated by one very fast and skilful player advancing on the right and giving the defenders a torrid time.

In a busy spell during which Wanderers were a man down due to an unfortunate yellow card, that fast winger generated two well taken goals for the opposition.

Wanderers rallied and began to apply some pressure with some good passing through midfield into the space.

Shortly before half time a Wanderers short corner saw Tim Moores slot home into the left bottom corner of the net from the usual reliable injection from Tony Langridge. 1-2 at half time.

A slight reorganisation saw Ian Caws take on defensive duties against the fast Southampton forward and he managed to contain him to some extent, however, Southampton were able to score from a short corner.

Play was still end-to-end but Southampton scored again to make it 1-4 and it looked like Wanderers might be down and out.

Displaying the resilience that has been a mark of the whole team this season, Wanderers kept fighting and an incisive pass through to Iain Fleming allowed him to slip an excellent shot past the Southampton keeper.

A few minutes later, when some paused thinking there had been a foot touching the ball, David Nops was smart enough to keep running as the Umpires whistles stayed silent and he also placed one beyond the Southampton goalie.

Unfortunately time to complete the come back was running short and in a final and contentious flourish Southampton lifted a ball high into a crowded D and their forward skilfully picked it high out of the air and hit it straight down behind the Wanderers keeper.

Report by Jon Player