The current restrictions curtailed the usual social aspects of a day at the hockey and some rain in the lead up to the weekend and on the day made the conditions challenging from the start of the first game, but none of this damped the enthusiasm of the players being back on the field.

In the Open competition, the Horsham Hurricanes kept their late-season challenge for a place in the finals alive with a tough win over the Nhill Rangers in a high-scoring match.

After a very even start, Nhill opened the scoring in the seventeenth minute but enjoyed this lead for less than a minute before a quick break from the resumption of play resulted in Horsham levelling the scores again.

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With four minutes to play remaining before half time, Horsham scored again only to have Nhill level the scores once again to have them go into the break on two goals each.

Another goal each early in the second half kept the scored locked together until with nine minutes to go Horsham gained an advantage that the Rangers could not claw back, and they put the result beyond doubt with a fifth goal in the last minute of the game to extended their winning margin to two goals.

The Yanac Tigers scored a clinical one-goal win over a determined Kaniva Cobras, who have now slipped to sixth on the ladder and face an increasingly challenging assignment to regain a place in the top four before the finals.

The scoreline of the Warrack Hoops and Dimboola Burras match did not convey the closeness of this match, with the Hoops fighting hard to score each of their five goals, whilst also having to defend strongly to keep the determined Burras scoreless at the other end of the ground.

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The Women's competition produced two contrasting but equally enthralling games, with a high-scoring draw and a tense top-of-the-table clash that saw only one goal scored.

The two leading teams, Yanac and Kaniva, were heading for a scoreless draw in the opening match until a late goal to Yanac kept their undefeated run going, but not before Kaniva strengthened their claim to be a legitimate contender for the premiership by maintaining the pressure on the competition leaders for the full seventy minutes.

Damp conditions often contribute to lower scoring, but this was not the case in the match between the Nhill Thunderbirds and Horsham Jets.

The Thunderbirds took a narrow two goals to one lead into the halftime break but then went goal-for-goal for the rest of the game, finally finishing with four goals each, with the final score for the game coming in the second last minute of play to tie the scores at four goals each.

In the Under 16 competition, the Yanac Warriors scored a comfortable win over the Kaniva Raiders, and the Horsham Bombers and Nhill Leopards played out another high-scoring draw.