Warwick 5 (2) - (2) 4 Old SIlhillians

Goalscorers: Liam Glorney, Rich Thurman x 2, James Snelus

The Sils Vets assembled at Warwick School for another Monday night fixture - historically these have been tricky games to get full sides out for, but with the influx of Simon Spain, Dave Burton and Brett Hendricks this season, plus the option to have the Chairman playing in goal, the Sils were afforded the luxury of 2 subs for the fixture at Gallows Hill - though quite how match fit some of the players were could possibly be questioned! In fact, the Chairman himself probably should have remembered that he was supposed to be on a Committee Meeting - whoops! (And sadly a sign of things to come for the novice keeper....)

The Sils started in positive fashion, and the ball was played confidently around in the first few minutes, but with their first attack, Warwick took the lead after only a few minutes - hitting the visitors on the break, with their significantly younger forward line causing issues as they broke at pace, and were able to get in behind the retreating Sils defenders and slot home easily from close range.

However, as was to be the case for much of the evening, the game did not stay in the favour of one team for too long; a nice move involving Adrian Plunkett dancing past a couple of defenders culminated in Liam Glorney turning the ball home from in front of goal to restore parity only a few minutes after the opening goal from the home team.

Sils then took the lead, this time scoring from a PC, with a straight strike from Rich Thurman thundering into the bottom corner - catching the Sils players by surprise probably more than the opposition, as the ball stayed well below back board height!

Sadly, this did not lead to any further ascendency by the Copt Heath outfit, and much of their undoing was through their own inability to keep the ball. With the ball being given away regularly through poor passing decisions, and badly executed skills, Warwick began to turn the screw, and won several PCs, and had open play chances. Tabb, in goal, made 3 or 4 saves, including a one-on-one where the defenders marked the passing options and allowed the Chairman to close the angles down enough to deflect the shot wide. However, from a further attacking chance, Tabb was stranded as the ball was fired towards the far post, and whilst Chad Campbell was in place to try and stop the shot, sadly his stick wasn't, and the resultant foot led to a stroke being awarded, and despatched with aplomb by the Warwick centre back.

Half-time came with the score at 2-2 and lots of talk ensued about improving the passing, not panicking on the ball, and tracking back. Within seconds of the second half starting, it was evident that, as usual, the half-time talk had been a bit of waste of time! Sils once again gave the ball away, with a pass going straight to the home centre forward, with one of the SIls defenders still not actually on the pitch, and having been 2-1 up, the Sils were now 3-2 down.

Thankfully, once again the home team could not maintain their lead, and in fact Sils responded with a quick fire brace; James Snelus levelling through his usual industrious bustling pressure on the opposition midfield, winning the ball on the left side, and driving into the D as the defenders backed off, allowing him to just about squeeze the ball home from close range. Moments later, and Thurman had his second of the game, this time Hendricks winning the ball on the right, before finding Chris Thompson who picked out Thurman for a far more trademark lifted strike into the back of the net.

As before, Sils still looked vulnerable on the break, and whilst they did look to play some nice hockey, Warwick had further chances as they attacked with purpose (and much younger legs) and soon equalised through a thundered shot from a tight range after an initial save by Tabb had left him scrambling to recover, and falling foul of the GKs curse, the nutmeg, for the first of two occasions. The winner from Warwick was another nutmeg, this one very different from the previous goal though - some poor organisation in the Sils defence led to two spare men on the edge of the D being able to fire the ball towards the goal, and the home team centre-forward, in falling over in front of the keeper, got the faintest of touches to deflect home from close range.

Sils strived hard for an equaliser, but could not quite find the quality required to get the goal, and the team finished with a frustrating 5-4 defeat.

Some great chips and sandwiches in the pub afterwards (even if the home team did get served first - very poor etiquette!) supported the usual votes and fines, with James Snelus and Rich Thurman sharing the Player of the Match vote.