Old Loughtonians side started by putting pressure onto the Havering side. Their youth repeatedly attacked the Havering D with ferocity, each time aptly put to rest by a defensive side of S. Ashlin, Z. Shallow and G. Pink, and a couple of good initial saves by keeper, P. Afteni.

Loughts continued to control the majority of the half, maintaining possession as Havering struggled to get a foothold in the game. G. Bushnell-Wye and R. Chart played defensively in the midfield attempting to put these to rest with some success, or the defensive team maintained a cracking job in maintaining their clean sheet.

Havering gradually started to come into the game, moving the ball down the left and right to wingers J. Egan and L. Afteni, or through the centre to S. Waters, G. Ashlin and J. Sewell. In the 35th minute, and last play of the half, Havering secured a penalty corner with all players pushing up the pitch. A mistake by the Havering players entering the D too early, saw L. Afteni expelled from the short corner. The team secured an additional short from a Loughts foot. J. Downey injected to Ashlin, who passed the ball off to G.Richards, who assisted a swift goal from Downey down to the side of the keeper. The half finished Havering 1 - 0 Old Loughtonians.

Havering reset expectations at the half time interval, ensuring that they played their game and maintain their positioning to take control of the game.

The home side came out strong in the second half, maintaining dominance over the Loughtonians side. Judge, Richards, Waters, Chart and Downey made quick moves to secure and maintain possession to a debutant F. Hartnett on the left who continued to pass the ball through to the midfield and forwards supporting play up the pitch. Ashlin, Sewell and Egan made convincing runs continuously into the D, making several moves to attack that were put to rest by the Loughtonian side.

The 47th minute saw the ball to Hartnett, who fed it back into Downey, passing to Waters who pinged the ball down the left hand side of the keeper to secure Havering’s second goal of the game.

Loughts continued to apply pressure to get back into the game, pushing the right side of the pitch in abundance with Afteni, Bushnell-Wye, Judge and others intercepting or channelling the ball to allow for the rest of the team to gain their positions. Keeper P. Afteni made a cracking save with his glove following an aerial attack to maintain his clean sheet. Ashlin passed the ball to young Ashlin, who put a through ball through to J. Sewell who managed to out skill two Loughtonian players. Unfortunately, an aerial ball to get him out of trouble was identified as “dangerous play” and a foul awarded after what was a brilliant run!

The game finished Havering 2 - 0 Old Loughtonians. A cracking game with good hockey played from both teams! HAvering will look forward to their next fixture against Upminster HC on Saturday 5th October.