Brooklands 4 Chelmsford 3

Slazenger Men's EHL

Division One

Brooklands Manchester University 4 Chelmsford 3

An impressive Chelmsford performance was undone by a hat-trick from Peter Flanagan, who followed up on his brace for Brooklands the previous weekend.

That victory last weekend had helped to lift the Manchester based side into second place in Division One.

Twice Chelmsford led, but it was three goals in the space of eight second half minutes that proved to be Chelmsford's undoing.

This could possibly be attributed to the lack of options Chelmsford were able to look to from their substitutes bench.

Following Brooklands extremely comfortable victory the previous weekend, it was perhaps surprising that Chelmsford started the game by far the stronger team, taking the lead in the 15th minute.

Ed Stanhope's clinical strike found the top corner of the net, giving the Brooklands goalkeeper no chance.

Chelmsford continued to exert pressure and if Brooklands had any doubt they were involved in a game there were no doubts when Olly Cooper finished off a well-structured move.

Luke Mepham's through ball found Richard Nourse, his very unselfish layoff found Cooper who could not miss the open goal from two yards.

However, Brooklands managed to get a crucial goal before half time that no doubt gave them a lift as Flanagan got the first of his three corners.

Chelmsford knew they would be put under pressure during the early stages of the second half, but they managed to extinguish any flamethrower sent to them.

Having weathered the storm, Chelmsford re-stored their two-goal lead when Cooper's smart finish, after excellent close skill from the returning Adrian Palmer, set up the chance.

With only 22 minutes of the game left, Brooklands were throwing everything they had at Chelmsford, but it was a freakish goal that brought them back into the game.

There appeared to be little danger at the top of the 'D' as Dan Emery was putting pressure on Martin Scanlon, however, Scanlon's shot deflected off Emery's stick and slowly looped into the top corner, giving the Chelmsford defence and Dean Armstrong in goal no chance.

This gave Brooklands some impetus and within two minutes they had forced a corner that Flanagan could convert to bring the scores level.

Just six minutes later Flanagan completed his hat-trick with yet another corner and, although Chelmsford tried to force their way back into the game, they just did not have the legs to claim a possible deserved equaliser.

Despite the result, the performance will give Chelmsford confidence to put together a small run of good performances.

However, they will have it all to do as they take on promotion hunting Essex rivals Old Loughtonians next week.

No doubt the neutral viewer will be hoping for something as exciting as Chelmsford's previous 8-5 defeat, although Chelmsford's home crowd may be hoping it will be a reversal this time. Saturday's game is a 2pm start at Chelmer Park.