Our first game as defending champions took us to Southampton University last night.

Always a difficult team to play against, we took the early initiative and were 3 - 0 up early in the first quarter. They pulled one back and then the next two quarters were untidy affairs where we lost our direction.

Going into the final quarter with a 7 - 3 lead, we put some extra effort in and came away with a 13 - 4 win.

Team was Martin Rutland, Steve Restorick, George Fridd, Craig Bishop, Ed Stevens, Niall Laming, James Baker, Diddy Jones, Dan Kinsey, Matt White and Nick Ireland.

KS3 have a home game against Bridport at 6:30pm.

Juniors also play Bridport at Boscawen, starting at 7pm.

The 1st team have a game against Southampton University at their pool, starting at 9pm.

We are leaving from Dan's at 7:30pm.

The is the first game in the 2007/2008 Hampshire League and a 'must win'.

Our first game of the season as defending Dorset Shield holders resulted in a narrow 8 - 7 loss against the Army.

We are playing our 2nd team in the competition this year and they struggled against an older, stronger and much more physical opposition. Coach Ed Stevens led the way as our top scorer and we gave all our team plenty of pool time but the Army gradually pulled back our lead and held out in the final minutes as sustained pressure from us failed to result in a goal.

The next game in the competition is a home fixture against Bridport on the 2nd December.

The final weekend at Crowborough went more or less according to plan (or at least the things under our control did).

The Saturday game was against the cosmopolitan team of Ealing and when the first quarter finished at 5-5 we almost believed that we could win it. However we were time and again punished by Ealing breaking off us when we lost possession and we showed little innovation in trying to overcome their defence.

The final score was 23-10, the same margin of victory they enjoyed over us at Pond's Forge.

However, with two points already in the bag from the Basingstoke no-show, the weekend's goal was always to beat University of Bristol in the Sunday game and this we duly did with a 10 - 8 victory.

Heading home, we were in fifth place in the league and feeling that the position was secure; Cambridge were one point behind with a game to play but that was against promotion challengers Croydon. Unfortunately we'd forgotten that Cambridge had triumphed 11 - 8 over Croydon when they played at the Walsall weekend and they duly went and defeated them again, this time by just one goal at 9-8. Ex-GB goalie and Cambridge coach Andy Knight saved two penalties in the game.

So we finished our first ever NWPL season with a creditable 6th place, only one point behind Cambridge and five and six points ahead of Newcastle and Basingstoke respectively.

We are definitely entering the competition again in 2008.

The AGM will be held at Osprey Leisure Centre / Boscawen on Friday 11th January starting at 7:30pm.

Any motions for the meeting or nominations for any post should be given to Terry Gant by 5th January 2008.

The last training session of 2007 will be Sunday 16th December. On that night we will also be presenting awards to the best and most improved players this year.

2008 training commences on Sunday 6th January.

We travel to Crowborough on Saturday for the final games in our first season in the NWPL.

Originally we were scheduled for three games but Basingstoke have withdrawn leaving us with a fixture against Ealing on Saturday followed by a game against University of Bristol on Sunday.

We are currently in 6th place in the League, one point behind Cambridge and one point ahead of Newcastle. The withdrawal of Basingstoke will give us two points automatically - both Cambridge and Newcastle have to play three games each, one of which is against each other. This gives us the possibility of improving to 5th place if we beat Bristol; Ealing will be harder to overcome.