ROMSEY WIN BOOSTS SURVIVAL HOPES

A second win in three matches has given Romsey hope that they may yet be able to avoid the drop into Hampshire League hockey next season.
They followed up a thrilling 4-3 victory over Addiscombe by twice coming from behind and beating Surbiton III 3-2 – hot shot Danny Miles scoring twice, including the winner ten minutes from time.
Romsey are still bottom of the Hampshire/Surrey Regional Division 2 table, but their visit to Hamble – the third and last of three derbies in the coming weeks – promises to be critical in their survival bid.
Surbiton’s young side peppered Romsey early on, with goalkeeper Loz Scott making a series of saves before being beaten by a deflection.
By good fortunate, Surbiton scuffed and squandered a penalty stroke at 1-0.
Romsey seized their opportunity, forcing three short corners, the last of which Miles tucked away to bring the scores level.
Surbiton hit back, punishing Romsey from a long corner but seeing their 2-1 lead cancelled out when Jack Forrest-Charde picked out Chris Mason to wrong-foot the visitors goalkeeper and put the Abbeymen level again.
It was Loz Scott to the rescue with a series of vital saves as Surbiton’s unsuccessful penalty corner attempts ran into double figures.
Romsey launched a number of their own raids and with ten minutes remaining grabbed the winner.
A fierce tackle inside the 25 yard zone, resulted in a Romsey penalty corner, which Miles fired into the top left hand corner for his seventh goal in five recent games,
stepped up, and fired into the top left corner taking his 2017 tally to 7 goals in 5 games, to put the Abbey men ahead, 3-2.
Surbiton refused to lie down and were denied, initially by a Dave Edwards goal-line save then Scott, who saw off two more late short corners to secure Romsey a critical three points.
Hamble came away with a 3-3 draw from their visit to Camberley & Farnborough, the other club in deep relegation trouble.
Andover’s two Regional 2 matches produced a staggering 23 goals – a 6-5 win at Addiscombe cushioning the disappointment of a 7-5 defeat at Croydon & Old Whitgiftians.