Or at least that's what it looked like, as we forgot how to pass and move the way we had done only a week ago.

Despite a pre-match warning about getting off to a good start, we were 1-0 down within the first few minutes. A controversial umpiring decision at the half-way line overturned possession and we didn't recover before the ball found it's way into the net.

Fortunately the opposition only had 10 men and this helped us to get back on level terms when Rusty rampaged through the middle of their defence, before laying it off to Boydie (Boydy?) who's shot gave the keeper no chance.

A bit of a stramash in the circle led to our second when the (suddenly) prolific Dunbar edged the ball over the line—or roofed it, in his version of events—which gave us the lead at half-time, but it was far from the convincing display that we all knew we were capable of.

The second half started much better as more than two passes were strung together. Our third goal was the only real quality seen in the game, with Galloping Louis Galloway picking up a through ball before drawing in a few defenders and laying the ball off to Boyd who again slotted it home.

Shortly afterwards a shot from a Galloway corner rebounded from the keeper to Rusty who controlled it well and fired it past the hapless keeper. 4-1 and surely the game was over…

Nope.

We seemed to think that we had done enough and allowed the visitors to get back into the game. At first their attacks were stifled fairly comfortably, but their increasing frequency was ominous, as was our inability to take advantage of the chances we created.

Inevitably they broke through once too often and scored to give them a faint hope of taking something from the game.

Then they scored again, and, to use another premiership manager reference, it was "squeaky bum time".

We persevered with what was our worst performance for quite some time, but a 4-3 victory gave us the three points that ensure we stay in East 1 for another season and by coincidence Reivers are relegated.

Not pretty, but just about good enough.

Grange Hockey Club

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