Fresh off a bye week and a recent win over 2nd place Old Tenisonians, the 2’s hosted top of the table (not for long) Royal Bank of Scotland who until then had only lost one game all year.

The boys were full of confidence when they rocked up to the sunny but gusty REMPF. RBS to be fair to them were very physical with a couple of stocky and surprisingly swift lads up top.

It was clear from the first minute what their game plan was, stick the ball up in the air and hope our defence would lose the physical battle. This would have worked against 90% of teams in the league but the Pinney-Pepps partnership was strong enough to deal with it.

This pattern continued for most of the first half, occasionally broken up by some tidy Thorns play. Just before the end of the half, a marauding Ciaran Davis-Wall provided the touch of quality the game needed when he sent two RBS bankers packing with some lovely and very smooth dribbling, before staring down the keeper and squaring the ball to Foxy who slotted home into the empty net. HT: 1-0 OT’s

The message at half time was clear, win our 50/50’s and get the ball to the forwards quicker. The second half was again a very tight affair until RBS who had been pushing for an equaliser got what they wanted with 11 minutes to go. 1-1.

The disappointment was clear, but the lads dug deep and after a close call where foxy had to clear the ball onto to the bar we hit back! Conor beating the offside trap and crossing for Deji who brought the ball down, turned and finished in style with a looping shot into the far corner. 2-1 OT’s!

After a couple more minutes and a very biased penalty shout from the oppo’s striker, we finished the game off. Foxy (looking like James Rodriguez) flicked the ball onto Parimal, who picked out Janke on the edge of the area who finished emphatically, game over! 3-1 OT’s, great team performance. After back-to-back wins against the top two, the 2’s are now 6 points off second. They couldn’t, could they??

Ben Dockerill