Sevenoaks 6 v 5 Hampstead & Westminster

Due to other results Oaks knew that they had to win their final game against Hampstead and Westminster to have any chance of qualifying for finals day, but they would also have to rely on Reading to do them a favour against Wimbledon by winning or drawing against the South West London side. Oaks made a terrible start, conceding the opening goal after eight seconds to go 1-0 down. However, the response was marvellous and in the fourth minute Craig Haley equalised to make it 1-1. Four minutes later Oaks took a 2-1 lead when Ian Haley added a goal. The second quarter was very even until the last couple of minutes when Oaks added two quick goals with Sam George and David Smith getting on the scoresheet to make it 4-1 at half-time. The pick of the goals was Sam George’s - where he showed sublime skill to beat the keeper one-on-one. Oaks made a dream start to the third quarter as Smith and George added a goal each within the first four minutes to extend the lead to 6-1. At this point Hampstead threw caution to the wind and removed their goalkeeper to play with six outfield players, to benefit from overloads in attacking positions. Oaks defended well and did not concede for the remainder of the quarter. 18-year-old, Ben Fox, replacing the injured Nick Barker in defence, performed astonishingly well, with an assured performance against some of the best players in the country. In the fourth quarter the overload started to show, and Hampstead gradually started the reduce the deficit pulling the score back to 6-5 with ten seconds remaining, but Oaks saw out the remaining seconds to take the victory.

The victory took Oaks onto 15 points, with 5 wins and 3 defeats, with a goal difference of +9. This would have been enough to qualify for finals day in seven of the last eight seasons, but Oaks needed to rely on Reading doing them a favour by winning or drawing against Wimbledon, who had a superior goal difference to Sevenoaks. In a tense game, Wimbledon took a 3-0 lead before Reading pulled it back to 3-2 with five minutes to go, but they couldn’t quite find an equaliser, so Wimbledon joined Sevenoaks on 15 points with a goal difference of +12, and therefore took fourth spot by virtue of three goals. The Oaks side was excellently coached by Ian Haley and captained by Chris Barker, and whilst it was desperately disappointing for Sevenoaks to miss out on the top four and finals day, despite winning 5 of 8 games, with a new coach implementing some different ideas and lots of new players, including two teenagers, Oaks performed extremely well throughout the tournament. No doubt the experience will leave them in a strong place looking ahead to next year.