Havant beat rivals to win annual tri series cup

The annual competition is a triangular tournament and played as a friendly series before the resumption of the league programme.

City of Portsmouth, Jersey and Havant are the teams involved.

The competition was very close last year but Jersey retained the trophy.

This year, however, Havant managed to wrestle it back.

Last Thursday night a young Havant side ran out 5-0 winners against the City of Portsmouth at Furze Lane, although the game was much tighter than the scoreline suggested.

Aaron Hoare, Will Jones, Elliot Tucker, James Harper and James Evans were all on the scoresheet for Havant.

Then on Saturday, they took on a visiting Jersey side and won 2-1.

With a slightly rearranged side Havant started slowly and spent much of the first period defending.

However, with five minutes of the half remaining, Hoare stepped up and converted Havant’s second penalty corner of the game.

Jersey mounted an immediate response and earned themselves a penalty corner on the stroke of half- time but Havant defended well to keep their lead intact going into the break.

The second half started much the same way as the first half had finished, with Havant struggling to take control of a well-organised Jersey side.

In similar fashion to the first goal, and with 10 minutes remaining, Hoare continued his goalscoring run by stepping up and converting Havant’s fifth penalty corner of the game.

There was still time to for Jersey to mount further attacks, which resulted in them scoring from open play.

But with three minutes remaining, Havant were able to see out the game and take the victory.

With two wins out of two for Havant, the remaining fixture between Jersey and City of Portsmouth had no bearing on the winner.

Injured captain Andrew Galliers kindly came along to lend his support to the team.

There were six different goalscorers for Havant 6s in their 6-2 win over Southampton University 5s.

Nick Walters, James Walters, Ollie Wright, Oli Reed, Ben Bream and Derek Cunliffe all netted.