Men's 1's return to the top of Premier B

Havering hosted Norwich City at Campion in their first reverse fixture of the season knowing they were in for tough game after a hard thought 4-2 win away from home. Captain Michael Caruana Smith was unavailable as was Alex Simpson, Chris Dunn and Josh Cipa but Havering welcomed back last season’s top scorer Gaz Ingram who had missed the first half of the season with a knee injury.

The game started at a quick tempo with the home side controlling the early possession and creating two early chances with Alex Defroand and Ollie Cipa going close after good passing moves. Havering continued to put pressure on the Norwich defence high up the field and when Paul Dover intercepted the ball from the last man he made his way to the D and made no mistake shooting into the far corner to give Havering the lead.

From this point on Norwich had their best spell in the match and put the Havering defence under pressure and a quickly taken hit outside of the twenty five allowed a visiting forward to beat his man and play a ball to the back post for a grateful Norwich player to tap the ball home. This joy was short lived however as minutes later Harry Andrews was sent free on the right and played a ball across the D for Ingram who scored an excellent reverse stick deflection at the far post to open his account for the season. Ingram picked up his second of the match soon after finishing from close range to give Havering a 3-1 half time lead.

Knowing the next goal would be crucial Havering came out with intent in the second half and controlled possession and it did not take long for the breakthrough to come. Paul Johnson found Marcus Hall on the right who played the ball down the line for Cipa whose cross was smashed against the post by Andrews at the back post, however the ball fell kindly to Defroand who finished calmly into the empty net. The move of the match produced the fifth goal as Ingram and Dover exchanged passes in the D before Dover slipped the ball to Cipa to score at the back post.

Sensing the game was effectively won from this point Havering played some fine keep ball hockey led by Man of the match harry Jenkins and finished the scoring from a Penalty corner as Ingram completed his hat-trick after a well worked routine. Havering move back to top of the league and will face third placed Letchworth next week in what is sure to be thrilling encounter.