Bury St Edmunds 4 Colchester 4

NE14Hockey East League

Division One

Bury St Edmunds 4 Colchester 4

COLCHESTER snatched a draw from the jaws of victory as they threw away a four-goal lead away at fellow promotion hopefuls Bury St Edmunds. Colchester started the game well and for 20 minutes completely blew their opponents away.

Chris Rich opened the scoring for Colchester when Rob Mann laid the ball back for Rich to flick the ball into the goal. Colchester were pressing forward well and creating chances. Brian Barker having an effort saved by the Bury keeper after he found space in the 'D'.

Colchester continued to pull the Bury defence apart and the visitors doubled their advantage when a speculative effort from Chris Rich was turned into the roof of the net by a Bury defender.

Soon after Colchester extended their advantage after good work from Rohan Khaira. The Colchester skipper won the ball high up the pitch and drove towards the 'D'. Khaira was quite cynically fouled, but Khaira showed great composure to find a pass to Rob Mann, who put the ball into the back of the net.

Colchester's fourth goal came shortly after. A Bury defender committed a foul in the 'D' to give Colchester their first Penalty Corner of the match. Mike Hunt stepped up to fire a drag flick past the Bury keeper.

Colchester were firmly in control at this point and were looking to put the game to bed. However before half time Colchester had allowed their opponents a glimmer of hope. Jason Wilkins made a good save, but could do nothing to prevent the follow-up hitting the back of the net.

In the second half Colchester were looking to get back to how they played in the opening 20 minutes, however they were unable to hit the heights that they had managed early in the game. Bury got their second goal as the Colchester defense allowed an attacker to get a shot off in the 'D' which took Wilkins by surprise and was past him before he could do anything to stop it.

Colchester were still playing well in patches and creating chances, the best came when Rohan Khaira made a good run before playing the ball across the Bury keeper to Brian Barker, however the ball hit Barker's foot with an open goal waiting.

Bury made it a tense finish when they got their third goal from a penalty corner effort. With time running out Rob Mann conceded a penalty corner, with the umpire blowing for full time. The penalty corner had to be played to a conclusion, with Wilkins saving well from a straight strike, however the ball was raised from Wilkins' pads and a second corner was awarded. This time Wilkins could do nothing about the strike as Bury levelled up the game.

With this result, Colchester will now struggle to get into the top two for a promotion place, but will do all they can in the forthcoming weeks.