Romsey were disappointed to take nothing from this game, in which the scoreline did not reflect the play, and Romsey felt decisions didn’t quite fall their way.
An evenly balanced opening saw Lavant take the lead from a penalty corner, after a Romsey defender was sent to the half way line at the first taking for holding his stick in the air ahead of the goal line. The man advantage was nearly cancelled out with Romsey clearing the ball first through Lukasz Suleja twice and then Andy Moger, but the ball stayed in side the circle for Lavant to force it past Ollie O’Hara in goal.
After O’Hara made a great save from a Lavant shot to avoid it becoming 2-0, Romsey went on the offensive.
Stan Cazaly weaved his way through the Lavant defence only to see his shot well saved by the keeper, and both Bryn Wathen and Barry Hatch had firm shots padded away. Romsey almost equalised from a penalty corner but Matt Dukes shot was saved and the follow up cleared.
The second half started with Romsey still in attack mode, and as Sean Rawles played the ball to Colin Harwood from a penalty corner, he passed to Duke to swivel and shoot to make it 1-1.
The turning point in the game came mid-way through the half, after the Lavant keeper had been forced in to making two more fine saves from Wathen and Duke, Josh Harwood played a ball through to Stan Cazaly on the far post, he stopped the ball and pushed it past the keeper for 2-1. With the ball at the centre cirlce and the teams lined up for the pushback, the Lavant umpire at the far end of the pitch consulted with his colleague and the goal was ruled out for a lifted ball. This was harsh on Romsey, but with Lavant keen to win and providing both umpires, it was a pill they had to swallow.
As against the Isle of Wight a few weeks earlier, with 15 minutes to go, Lavant were awarded a penalty corner and as Ollie O’Hara saved the high flick it dropped to a Lavant player to push it over the line for 2-1 to the home side.
Romsey were crushed and while pushing for an equaliser, and reflecting on their goal that was disallowed, let Lavant have the run of the Romsey half and Lavant quickly scored four more goals with numbers overloading Romsey in the last ten minutes to provide a scoreline that did not reflect the game.
An interesting match awaits in 2019 at home for Romsey as Lavant push to win the league.
