Portsmouth ate one big loss

On an overcast, but otherwise pleasant, Saturday afternoon, Portsmouth 3s looked to bounce back from last week's slight stumble. Whilst the team were missing a third of their squad of choice, they were confident that not even a returning Chris Stone could upset the applecart. How wrong they were.

Chichester started fast and hard, opening the scoring with a strong, lifted reverse finish. Portsmouth soon replied with Stone's penalty corner shot being given as a goal despite the ball having not left the D after the injection. The umpire confirmed that this was because a) it wasn't a shot and b) it went in off the Chichester player, so that's all fine then. Truly everyday is a school day.

After Stone had stopped waving his clenched fist in celebration, Chichester restarted as they had begun, repeatedly bending the purple defence over and over. Fortunately the ever dependable Ed Smyth prevented any further penetrations with a variety of saves, some of which might be in the coaching manual.

Ending the half level, Captain DJ began by trying to highlight our few positives from the half before he was rudely interrupted by Jake who instead chose to tell us that everything was ship, we were ship and we could improve by not being ship. What a ray of sunshine that boy is.

The second half began a slower affair, until Jake decided that a pass to one of their forwards would be a good idea, the resulting goal proving the contrary. Inspired by Jake's actions far more than his words, several other members of the team made poorly judged passes of their own leaving Portsmouth trailing. Despite even more saves, Smyth failed to keep a further 6 out, for which there is apparently no excuse.

Portsmouth briefly felt the spark of hope arise when Stone went off due to his poorly lubricated meniscus giving up on life, but sadly this was 65 minutes too late to make a difference.

Man of the match went to Smyth for his efforts in keeping the scoreline below 30
Dick of the day went to Stoney, despite a late challenge from the phantom coat forgetter.