Southgate 4s faced off against Richmond 2s in the midday game on Saturday. Having suffered a 7-0 loss to them earlier in the season, and Richmond flying high in the league, Southgate knew it would be a tough fixture but following two wins on the bounce the 4s went into the game with confidence and belief. Richmond started fast and dominated the early parts of the game, pushing Southgate back deep into their own half, resulting in several short corners. Despite Southgate’s goalkeeper, Sam, putting in a standout performance and being named man of the match for his string of fine saves especially in that first half period, two of those short corners ended in goals – one directly and another resulting from a penalty flick after the ball was unfortunately stopped illegally on the line. 2-0 down at half time, Southgate grew into the game in the second half and more solid defensive work from all, but especially Luke and David at the back, kept Richmond at bay and the Southgate midfield got a hold of the game and pushed forward, creating chances to attack the Richmond half. If the next goal had gone to Southgate the last part of the game could have been interesting – perhaps on another day things could have played out differently. A great short corner effort from Lik was deflected by a defender off the line, if Rich had gone down after a foul in the D we may have got a flick, or if he had managed to anticipate and get his stick to a slightly wide shot from Zech instead of letting it hit his foot into the goal (winning him DoD)… but it wasn’t to be. Instead Richmond managed to convert a late short corner to complete their 3-0 win. Despite the defeat, the team showed a great improvement compared to the reverse fixture and can look to build on that along with better results of late as they head into next week’s game against the 3s.