Mens1's impress with their first home win of the season

Havering hosted Saffron Walden at Campion hoping to pick up their first home win of the season. If things were not going to be hard enough against the in form visitors Havering were also without Marcus Hall and top scorer Gaz Ingram. However Havering welcomed back Mike Hinton, Ollie Cipa, Chris Dunn and Mike Smith who had all missed last weeks trip to Harpenden.

Saffron Walden started the game at a frantic pace and showed a glimpse of what they were cable of in the opening minutes reacting to a mistake in the Havering defence and narrowly flashing a shot wide of Nik Males goal. It was evident from the start the away team had some useful players with the central midfielder in particular looking dangerous from the offset with his long ball into the D winning the first ball of the game, from this point on Hinton was given a man marking role which he executed to perfection. From the Penalty corner the ball was dragged wide of Males goal. However from their next corner Males saved the initial flick but the ball fell back to the opposition play who placed the ball over Males into the empty net.

From this point on Havering began to find a foot hold in the game and won their first penalty corner of the game, Alastair Lewis shot was saved by the visiting keeper but from the next corner the scores were level. Ollie Cipa drag flicked the ball high to tje goalkeepers left where Connor Poulain was on hand to deflect the ball into the roof of the net.

As the half entered its later stages Adam Lumbers aerial ball sent Stuart Garnell free down the left. Garnell powered into the D where he was met by the onrushing goalkeeper, as the pair tangled the ball made its way to the goaline but was stopped by a recovering defender Poulain was on hand to tap the ball into the empty goal.

Minutes later Havering scored a crucial third goal on the stroke of half time, Poulain intercepted the ball and sent Cipa away on the right who drove towards the D. Poulain continued his run and picked the ball up on the top of the D but his reverse stick shot was saved with the ball falling to Garnell who slipped the ball back to Poulain who stuck the ball into the goal to complete his hat-trick.

Walden came out hard once again in the second half looking to press the Havering backline but in the early stages it was the home side who made the decisive break, Cipa sent Garnell into the D who bounced the ball back to his team mate who drove for the top of the D unleashing a reverse stick effort at goal. Poulain was once again on hand to deflect the ball into the goal wrong footing the helpless keeper.

The away side pushed men forward in the hope of getting back into the game and despite having two players yellowcarded created a number of opportunities but were thwarted by an inspired Males and a dogged Havering defensive performance. Poulain nealry added a fifth in the final stages but his Penalty corner deflection was cleared off the line.

A decent win for Havering who have now climbed up to third in the table but they will need another strong performance if they are able to pick up another three points away at a srong Ipswich side next weekend.