Too little too late

A few more enforced changes meant that the Men's 3s were again unable to field a settled side. Gary Noble, back at Reading and destined for greater things replaced Henry Saxby in goal and Doug Whittaker and Kyle Maroo made their 3s debuts in place of Tino and Lavers.
Despite edging the opening exchanges Reading found themselves one down inside 10 minutes when a Reading defender went to ground to concede a soft Penalty Corner. After having a defender sent to the halfway line for breaking early Reading conceded a well executed goal at the far post.
Reading threatened to draw level, with the Amersham keeper making some great saves. A point blank reaction to deny Chris Wright being the pick of them. Then before half-time Reading conceded a second goal from an Amersham penalty corner, with Reading unfortunate that the angles prevented the umpires from seeing that the ball had hit the stopper's foot before the Amersham striker scored.
In the second half Reading started to show some composure in the middle of the park and got themselves back into the game when Cam Ellis scored a Penalty Stroke after a goal bound ball had hit a foot.
With the game getting stretched Reading had chances to equalise but the Amersham defence and keeper again stood firm and Amersham had chances of their own, coming close to increasing the lead from a string of late Penalty Corners.
Although the first half was no classic Reading improved in the second half and as the team gets to know each other better we can look forward to playing some decent hockey in the coming weeks.