East Men’s League

Premier A

IPSWICH hosted Dereham on Saturday for a home game that Ipswich knew they would have to win to make any progress in the league.

Ipswich handed a league debut to new signing Ross Henderson who had recovered from his calf injury. Ipswich started very brightly, taking the lead within a couple of minutes of the start.

A drilled ball into the D from Ed Driver was nicely deflected by Will Chrystal for his first league goal for the club. Almost immediately from the restart Ipswich earned a short corner following some nice work from Tom Parry, Dixon flicked from the top and Ipswich were 2-0 up within the first two minutes.

Dereham showed some fight back for the next 15 minutes with a succession of short corners but failed to make any impact with any attempts thanks to solid keeping from Ben Glading and solid defending from Ben Dykes & James Kingstone.

Ipswich then started to apply the pressure and most of the remainder of the half was spent in the Dereham half. Ipswich made it difficult for themselves as Tom Parry was yellow carded for voicing his disagreements with the umpires a little too vigorously. However Ipswich held firm and went into half time with a two goal lead.

Ipswich began the second half well and with Dereham playing a half court press Ipswich had the lions share of the possession and created a number of goal scoring chances form this. A good ball from Mark Wrinch found Keir Dixon wide on the Dereham 25 yard line, who cut in and offloaded to Jason Black. Black rounded his marker and entered the D wide on the left hand side, Ipswich bodies piled into the D expecting the reverse stick cross from Black but the Ipswich forward had other ideas. The reverse stick swing came from Black, the ball sailed high above the crowd of players in the D, over the Dereham keeper and finally fell into the top right hand corner of the goal. The crowd went wild for what they thought was one of the most daring and unbelievable reverse stick chips they had ever seen or likely to see again.

The Dereham players applauded the goal, the Ipswich players surrounded Jason and had their suspicions confirmed by the man himself when the first words that came out of his mouth were: “I did not mean to do that”.

Ipswich were now 3-0 up and were cruising, Dereham were limited to the occasional breakaway attack that were dealt with brilliantly by Kingstone, Wrinch and Dykes.

Ipswich were awarded another short corner following some great stick skills from Tom Watson, with Dixon off the pitch James Kingstone flicked from the top and slammed the ball home to make it 4-0 to the home side.

Not long after taking the four-goal cushion Ipswich were back down to a three-goal cushion. Some day dreaming at the back allowed a soft ball back into the D, Wrinch thinking it was going out allowed the ball to roll straight to the Dereham forward who shot, Glading saved but the rebound fell kindly to another Dereham forward to tap in.

The final ten minutes of the match was all Ipswich, who like most of the second half were camped in the Dereham half. Tom Watson and Ed driver exchanged numerous passes down the left and Watson shot on his reverse stick, the waist height shot found Robin Johnson who, unmarked five yards out deflect the ball into the empty net for his first league goal for the club, 5-1 Ipswich.

With only one minute left of the game, Ipswich still had enough time to score a final goal, Dereham at this point seemed content with simply undercutting the ball off the Ipswich end of the pitch form the restart.

Some excellent passing again from Ed Driver, Danny Sagrott and Tom Watson carved through the Dereham defence to leave Watson with a one on one with the Dereham keeper, Watson slotted home for the final goal and the final action of the game 6-1 Ipswich.

Ipswich played well for the majority of the game but still have a lot to work on with cheap possession turnover and misplaced passes still far too common, however the amount of open play goals and chances is now much more promising.

Ipswich now sit three points from the top of the table and following two wins on the bounce Ipswich are set on continuing the winning run up until the Christmas break.