New Forest entertained Canterbury City Men in the 2nd round of the National Cup with the winner having the opportunity of playing London Docklands in round three.

The beginning of the first set was a scrappy affair with New Forest making uncharacteristic errors enabling Canterbury to open a comfortable lead of 14-9. This prompted New Forest Coach, James Kemp to call a time out and read the riot act.

With their ears still ringing New Forest came out a different side and with Jacek Szafrański serving beautifully New Forest took the lead when Canterbury called a time out at 16-14 down.

Unfortunately for Canterbury this did not have the same effect as New Forest’s time out as Forest edged further ahead. At 22-19 down Canterbury called their final time out, but this just delayed the inevitable and Michael “Tubz” Johnson duly served the set out 25-20.

The 2nd set was controlled by New Forest from the first serve. Tubz had a 4 point service run which established the platform for New Forest. At 10-5 down Canterbury called a time out, but all this achieved was to get Festus Nfor straight into the action with a 5 point service run.

16 year old setter Tubz was now beginning to bamboozle and torment Canterbury and his piece de resistance was a reverse set winner, which they had no answer to. At this point with New Forest leading 14-5 Coach, Kemp decided to ring the changes and used his bench to full effect. One of these substitutions was 15 year old Zubair Mir, an exciting young prospect who was making his debut having sat on the bench all season.

With all the changes it took a while for the new players to adjust to the pace of the game. However New Forest had more than enough fire power to ease over the line 25-20.

With Tubz having done his work for the day and rested, Alex Lusby Taylor came off the bench and started the ball rolling again in set three. A run of three points off his serve and three points off Jacek Szafrański enabled New Forest to open a gap very early in the set.

With Forest firing from all cylinders and with Canterbury struggling to cope, an unfortunate incident occurred when middle player Kemp power smashed the ball and it hit one of the Canterbury players in the face. Fortunately there was no harm done.

Once again Coach Kemp rang the changes and at 19-14 down after a run of service winners by Pawel Grodzki, Canterbury would call their final time out of the match. Forest came out duly won the required points to win 25-20 and booked their place in the third round of the cup for the first time in their very short history.