IT WAS bad enough that Totton Netball Club had to take on an experienced team in Chandler's Ford.
But the fact they had only five players available to do it put them at a distinct disadvantage.
Rules state that five players is the minimum requirement for a game to go ahead - and to their credit, there was no moaning as the girls from Totton just got on with the job.
It helped that Chandler's Ford started with only six players - making it slightly more even!
It took a while for both teams to get into the game which started at a calm and friendly pace. Totton worked hard through the first quarter and shot well. Even with their lack of players, they worked well up the court with some hard and accurate passing and only trailed 7-5 at the end of it.
After a couple of minutes rest and a tactics talk, Totton did even better at the start of the second quarter to score two goals consecutively and level the match at 7-7.
Playing a side with fewer players can sometimes knock teams out of their rhythm but Chandler's Ford began to settle and increased their lead to 15-9 by half-time.
The pace was maintained in the second half but it was obvious that both teams were tiring slightly due to their lack of players - but they both kept working hard. That particularly applied to Totton when the opposition's seventh player turned up.
Totton never gave up throughout and threw everything into the game for the last few minutes but being two players down was a tall order although they scored a commendable 14 goals to Chandler's Ford's 34, just missing out on scoring a point.
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