Twelfth win sees Indies crowned champions

In a fitting finale, star man Steve Waldrom conjured a magic moment with five minutes left against their old rivals Colombians, finding the top corner with unerring accuracy from a short-corner drag flick to seal the deal with a terrific goal.

All they needed was to avoid defeat on the day to clinch the title, but there is no doubt that Tom Still’s men would not have celebrated in such jubilant fashion had the championship come without a perfect record.

‘It’s been a good season for us and we’re just happy to win the league, it’s been a few years since we got there,’ said Still with a mixture of relief and delight after the 3-2 victory.

Colombians certainly came close to spoiling – or at least delaying – the party.

This was probably the worst league performance of the season from the new champions, and yet they found a way to win.

To do so, they had to come from behind because despite starting brightly and forcing the first short-corner within the first 25 seconds of the match, Indies suddenly found themselves trailing on 5min. when Hamish Glass took advantage of the league leaders giving the ball away inside their own D and fired the ball into the top corner.

That lead lasted just two minutes.

An Indies attack down the right ended with Alex Setters’ cross being blocked into the path of Josh Kendal and he finished with aplomb.

Five minutes later, despite being down to 10 men while Carl Pugh served a yellow card in the sin bin, Indies went ahead.

Kendal won the short-corner that created the chance and after Jack Smart had controlled the injection, he laid the ball off to Waldrom who thumped it home.

You might have thought that goal would settle Indies, but generally they were far from their best and too frenetic at times while Colombians, with nothing to lose, were simply intent on making life as difficult as possible for their opponents.

Midway through the half Glass was unlucky to see his snap shot hit the base of a post before Will Rix made a good save at the other end to deny Dougal Perfitt.

Rob Turville matched that effort a few minutes later, coming off his line quickly to block from Zak Damarell, but the Colombians captain came up with an equaliser shortly before half-time with a low drive at another short-corner.

It looked for all money that Colombians were about to edge ahead once more in the opening exchanges of the second half when James Ball took the ball around Turville on a quick counter-attack, but Still somehow retrieved the situation with an astonishing last-ditch tackle.

Turville was kept busy over the next few minutes, twice making good saves from Damarell as Indies struggled to put anything of note together.

They then lost Tom Rigby to a yellow card, making their task harder for a while, but eventually they started creating chances again.

Rory Chamberlain, Perfitt and Smart all went close before Kendal won the crucial short with five minutes remaining.

The stage was all set for Waldrom and the Island forward came up trumps in some style.

However, there was still time for Damarell to embark on a remarkable one-man breakaway that so nearly ended in another equaliser, but Will Dawe somehow managed to scramble the ball off the goalline.

After that, the Oranges managed to see out the game and the champagne corks were soon popping.

‘I think we ran it pretty close today – it didn’t look like a win was on the cards until near the end there,’ Still said.

‘It wasn’t our best [performance], but that’s a big difference to other seasons when we might have played well and not won games – we have managed to win games without even playing well.’

Of their campaign, which started with a 9-1 win over previous champions Casuals, he added: ‘We wanted to come out strong, we wanted to show how good we are, there are a lot of good players in that team and we’ve played some good hockey for the most part so it’s nice it has all come together.’