Saxons had talked before the game about the importance of starting the game well, something that they had failed to do in the reverse fixture at great cost – losing that game 4-3. The calls for positivity from the outset were received loud and clear this time however and, within the first 5 minutes of the game, Saxons were in front thanks to a brilliant driving run from Ed Hooton who laid the ball off to James Wilson, and Saxons’ Player of the Season made no mistake, coolly sliding the ball under the keeper on his reverse stick to give the home side a 1-0 lead.

Shortly after this, Saxons won a penalty corner and the lead was doubled when George Eldridge – returning from a season-long injury – sent the resulting drag-flick into the bottom right corner, despite the best efforts of a Horsham defender. It was then 3-0 when captain James Bunday crashed another penalty corner home, the ball flicking of the keepers foot and flying into the net, and it was 4-0 at the break after Aston Spinks drag-flicked a short corner of his own into the backboard, again going low to the keeper’s right.

The second half started in similar fashion to the first, whenever Horsham did break forward it was well dealt with by Tim Pilbeam, Matt Stevens, Dom Ford & keeper Brock Smith – while at the other end Saxons continued to cause problems. Nick Taylor & Andrew Orr were driving forward well from wide and looking dangerous, both flashing shots across goal, while the forwards continued to cause Horsham issues with Eldridge, Wilson & Aston Spinks supporting well from midfield.

The scoring was eventually rounded-off for the day by Bunday, recovering from two poor misses just prior, the skipper fired a shot at the keeper before staying composed to pick up his own rebound and coolly lob the ball over the on-rushing keeper and into the net, making the score 5-0 at the final whistle – and – scoring his 24th goal of the season in the process.

Bunday said after the game: “It’s been a terrific season, really enjoyable all the way, we set out to be competitive and have more than met that target! Obviously we want to go up, and it would be a great way to celebrate a good year, but we have done all we can in finishing 2nd, and we’ll just have to wait on the higher leagues now to see what happens.”

Saxons: Smith, Pilbeam, Ford, Orr, Eldridge, Taylor, Wilson, Spinks, Hooton, Bunday (c), James, Stevens, Waters.”