“Despite the midweek weather doing its best to intervene, South Saxons 2nd XI got their campaign back underway following the festive break with a bitterly cold & wet away day at Southwick.

Saxons controlled the early stages of the encounter but the cutting edge was missing and they struggled to created the chances required to make the pressure tell.

On the 20-minute mark Saxons managed to find the breakthrough. James Wilson broke from midfield and calmly squared the ball to Tudor Stainsby, who didn't panic when his first shot was saved well by the keeper and coolly slotted home the rebound.

Saxons continued to dominate the first period but failed to trouble the scorers again, and while the Saxons defence of Tim Pilbeam, Matt Stevens, Dom Ford & keeper Nate Webster coped well with what Southwick did muster in response, the home side should have been level when their centre was left unmarked in the Saxons D - but he could only fire against the woodwork, meaning the score remained 1-0 at half time.

The second half began in much the same vein, with Saxons dominating the ball but this time Saxons were determined to come away from the Southwick half with some goals to show for it. Within 5 minutes, Stainsby had grabbed his second of the day – stellar work from speed machine Tom Waters down the Saxons right meant that Stainsby was left with a straight forward chance to double Saxons advantage.

Next came a very strange moment in the match, Saxons broke forward quickly and Stainsby found himself with a great opportunity to fire home for his hat-trick but mishit his shot, which fell to captain James Bunday who calmly rounded the keeper before hopelessly fluffing his lines. Southwick failed to clear the danger though and conceded a short corner, which was dispatched into the backboard by Bunday to make the score 3-0.

Southwick grabbed a break-away goal next that could have sparked a comeback on another day, Saxons were in no mood to let this slip though and another short corner brought another goal to restore the 3-goal cushion. Tom James injected the corner and when Ford returned the ball to him, he coolly slotted the ball under the keeper and Saxons were 4-1 ahead.

Saxons weren’t done here, first Wilson turned the ball over high up the pitch and found Bunday in the opposition half. The captain turned his man, beat the last man on the top of the circle and calmly lifted the ball over the sliding keeper into the far corner to make the score 5-1.

A couple of cards followed for the away side, Stevens was given a green for “back sticks” and Bunday received a yellow after reacting badly to being kicked and sworn at.

The scoring was rounded off despite the numerical disadvantage when a Southwick defender turned the ball into his own net following more good work from Waters down the right hand side.

Captain Bunday said after the game; “This was a great win for us and a really encouraging performance to start the second half of the season. We know that we need to perform at this level every week if we’re serious about a promotion push this year.”