Ops made the 'somewhat trickier than usual' trip up to Sutton Valence school, contending with road closures and subsequent traffic gridlock on usually quiet country lanes. The later than planned arrival meant the usual warm up was somewhat curtailed, and it showed in the Ops play for the first 20 minutes or so. Despite some nice attacking hockey, with Daniel Andrews and Josh Scooter threatening down the right, and Ben Taylor and Guillaume Michotte racing down the left, Ops couldn't make much from their attacks. Ray Semadeni and Martin Ritchie were working hard in the middle of the pitch, ably backed up by young Oakley Nicholls making his second appearance of the season for the 5s, but things just didn't seem to stick, with passes going astray too often. This gave Valence the opportunity to seize possession and turn defence into attack in a trice. This meant that skipper Paul Andrews spent far too much time chasing shadows in the middle of the park, whilst the back 4 of Colin Fernandez-Grant, Ross Dryburgh, Tim Westley and Charlie Milligan in goal had to repel attack after attack. AJ Vignaux appeared in about 4 different positions, giving many of the Ops a much needed breather as they worked hard in the spring sunshine. Eventually the Valence pressure told and they took the lead with a powerful strike into the roof of Ops net. Milligan produced several good stops following that to keep the Ops in touch at 1-0 down at the break. Stern words were heard in the Ops team talk, which immediately spurred them into action on the restart. Some scrappy play saw Andrews jr and Scooter attacking down the right flank, keeping the ball alive, which then arrived on Semadeni's stick. His almost apologetic upright reverse hit from the top of the circle completely flummoxed the home keeper to nestle in the far corner and square things up. Ops were buoyant, but parity lasted barely a minute, when SV thundered home a short corner to regain the lead. Ops showed real resilience and guts to stay in the game, and an equaliser came when Andrews jr and Scooter again combined down the right, with Scooter driving the baseline to square the ball for Taylor to sweep home. Within 5 minutes the Ops were ahead for the first time in the game. A short corner saw Dryburgh pick out Michotte steaming in on the post to divert the ball into the home net, the mercurial Frenchman wheeling away in delight. The last 10 minutes were a real backs to the wall display from the Ops. Andrews sr making tackles and a goal line save from a short corner, Milligan making saves, Fernandez-Grant and Westley tiger'ish on the flanks, and Dryburgh adopting the 'you shall not pass' approach, coupled with a slightly odd moment that saw an SV sub get a green card, which meant his captain had to sit down off for two minutes, meant that the Ops closed out a hard-fought victory, to boost them to 4th in the table. Just one game remains now for the 5s, with an opportunity to secure a top half finish following their promotion into the league this year.