Despite the conditions, Saxons started the game brightly, with midfield trio of Sam Bunday, Danny Burnett & James Wilson playing some nice hockey and pacey half-backs Tom Waters & Ben Simmons providing plenty of impetus going forward. Without regular players the short corners weren’t as slick as normal for the home side, 4 corners came and went without troubling the scorers before Saxons finally got one to click, skipper James Bunday firing home to put his side ahead.

Saxons continued to press forward and were playing some good hockey, but it was Eastbourne who pulled themselves level, a quick spin & shot from the edge of the circle caught keeper Nathaniel Webster napping and it was 1-1 and game on. Despite this shock, Saxons quickly regained their previous composure and despite a green card to Waters and a goal from the impressive Burnett being disallowed, the home side capitalised on a yellow card to Eastbourne taking them down to 10 men – Sam Bunday set off on a superb driving run and found Tom James in the circle who made no mistake and put Saxons 2-1 up at half time.

After the break Saxons, buoyed by a terrific home support at Horntye Park, set about giving everyone watching something to cheer about. From the start of the half it really was clear that it was only going one way – the Saxons defence of Tim Pilbeam & Matt Stevens never really looked in danger – and the midfield & forwards continued to pile forward for attack after attack.

It took a while for the 3rd Saxons goal to materialise, despite the building pressure, but when Man of the Match Tom James broke down the left and laid the ball across goal, youngster Bailey Wright made no mistake – flicking the ball home from a tight angle for his first goal in the 2nd XI.

After this the floodgates opened and two more goals followed for the Hastings side, as Harry Tomlinson grabbed his first of the season and Nick Taylor his 7th, both rounding off slick passing moves from close range. James Bunday grabbed his second shortly afterwards, slamming home another penalty corner, as Saxons passed six goals in a game for the 3rd time this season.

Sadly, some of the gloss was taken off as Eastbourne grabbed a consolation with the last action of the game via a short corner of their own, but this was an impressive performance from the home side and a resounding score line to match it.

Skipper Bunday said after the game; “we talked before the game about needing to keep going until the end no matter what the score, unlike last week where we really let ourselves down late on to lose the game. This week we put that right and kept adding goals despite being comfortably ahead, it was pleasing to see and hopefully we can build on it next week away at Crawley.”

The result moves Saxons up to second in the table, just one point of the top, as they travel to play Crawley 2s on Saturday.