Neston South Wirral Hockey are beaten 6-0 at Preston

Oct 5 2011 by Our Correspondent, Birkenhead News

NESTON South Wirral had an afternoon to forget in North Division Two, as they went down 6-0 at Preston.

The visitors’ preparation was not ideal, with traffic problems meaning most of the side arrived shortly before the allocated start time, and four of the team delaying that start, as they were forced to dump their car and walk the cobbled streets of suburban Preston to the ground.

Despite that Neston made a decent start, forcing a couple of penalty corners, but these were comfortably thwarted.

Ben Heywood made them pay when he finished well from the home teams first set piece, and he put them two ahead just before the break, when he smashed home.

After the interval, Preston's rotation of their large squad really started to pay dividends, and when Neston skipper Rich Lowry parried a cross, the ball fell kindly for Steve Masterson to flick home.

Preston's swift movement had Neston wilting in the heat, and they were again undone as Phil Bowman finished twice from flowing breaks. Late on, Heywood smashed past Lowry for his third, and compound Neston's misery.

This weekend Neston will look to bounce back when they entertain Northern.

Elsewhere, the ladies first team continued their fine start to the season as they overcame a tricky Wrexham pitch to overcome the hosts 4-0.

Emma Nokes grabbed 2, with Lorien Waterer and Louise Swift the other scorers.