The opening exchanges were tight and it looked like a tight tussle was on the cards as both teams saw plenty of the ball and neither team managed to fully take control of the game, Littlehampton threaten on occasion but were well dealt with by Tim Pilbeam, Matt Stevens, Dom Ford and ‘keeper Brock Smith and Saxons spurned a few chances of their own to take an early lead.

It was the home side who eventually broke the deadlock after 20 minutes though when captain James Bunday fed a penalty corner back to injector Greg Thomas, who made no mistake from close range to put Saxons 1-0 ahead. From this point Saxons grew in confidence and goals from Nick Taylor, successfully bailing his captain out after he’d fluffed his lines horribly, and Bunday from another penalty corner meant that Saxons went in 3-0 up at the break.

The second half began in stark contrast to the first half, the late flurry of Saxon goals seemed to have knocked the stuffing out of Littlehampton and given Saxons an increased confidence. It really was one-way traffic and goal of the day this week fell to Man of the Match Nick Taylor, after a flowing move with a succession of passes, starting with right half Phil Carrington, round the back through Pilbeam, Stevens, Ford & Taylor and good interplay from midfield with Thomas & Wilson, before the ball was worked back to Taylor to apply the no nonsense finish and put Saxons 4-0 ahead.

Bunday followed this up by hammering a 4th short corner in 2 weeks into the backboard to put his side 5-0 up, and Greg Thomas also grabbed a second of the match to put Saxons 6-0 and seemingly in cruise control.

Littlehampton were gifted a lifeline when a rare forage into Saxon-territory was rewarded with a penalty stroke, despite the ball appearing to have been stopped by Ford’s stick on the goal line, being given for a foot on the line. No mistake was made from the spot and a superb finish after a defensive mix-up meant that Littlehampton had grabbed two consolation goals late-on to take some of the gloss of the Saxons performance.

All in all though, it was another terrific performance from the Hastings side and more performances of this quality will mean Saxons current position in the top reaches of the table, will be one that is sustained over the course of the season.

Saxons: Smith, Pilbeam, Stevens, Carrington, Ford, Taylor, Wilson, Thomas, E.Hooton, Bunday, Spinks, James, Simmons.