Whitchurch Men’s 1s 4 Oxton Men’s 4s 0

Whitchurch were at home this week against a youthful team from Oxton, hoping to build on the good work from last week at Keele.

Oxton immediately applied pressure, which Whitchurch were able to soak up reasonably well, with Paul “Sturge” Leigh in goal called on far less than against Keele.

The defence of Danny Foulkes, Steve Key, James Partington, Rob Chappell and Airan Jones in rotation were able to mark their players well, channel them out wide and clear any incursions into the dee.

In the centre, Alex Fry, Jack Barnes and Ben Kimberley again put in strong games to control the middle of the field and distribute the ball well to the wings, but Oxton made it difficult this week and a number of passes from Whitchurch players were intercepted or went directly to the opposition, which meant a lot of running back to recover and gave Oxton more opportunities than they should have had.

The deadlock was broken with Fry launching an aerial up the field which got to Tom Forster who put away an excellent reverse-stick strike to put the Reds one up.

Whitchurch then started to find more space behind the Oxton midfield, and Nick Cooper, Jon Chappell, Martin Beecher and Forster combined well to stretch out the Oxton defence.

Again, attacks were snubbed due to passes not making their targets, or people driving into difficulty, but the game was well-balanced.

The forwards were unlucky not to get goals from good passes into the dee, lacking just a final touch on a number of occasions.

Penalty corners started to come into play as the game stretched to each dee more often, and Sturge was called on to make critical saves, but it was a penalty corner to Whitchurch that made the difference: the Reds put a training pitch routine into practice with Barnes pulling off a perfect drag flick just inches inside the left post to put the Reds two up.

Another penalty corner followed shortly after, but was ruled out for height on the first strike, and Whitchurch went into half time with a deserved lead.

The half-time talk was about trying to cut out the frustrating mistakes so that the focus could be on repeating the good skills from the first half.

Whitchurch set to their tasks better in the second half, but as Oxton pressed more to try to get back into the game, some of the tackles from both sides got more enthusiastic and broke up play.

Whitchurch settled quicker, and put together one of the better goals from their season, starting with a clearance from a sixteen, five passes down the right wing and a sharp strike from Jon Chappell to put the third on the score sheet.

It represented the best of everything that Whitchurch is striving for this season, with success coming from players running for each other and playing as a team.

It was another good team effort that gave Chappell his second towards the end of the game, and it was then a case of holding on for the victory.

Oxton played well, and were very strong in the middle of the pitch, but were unlucky not to get a goal themselves.

The final whistle was welcome as Whitchurch knew they hadn’t played their absolute best, but had still come away with a good win.

They are away next week at Northop Hall who are currently just below them in the league table.