That Greavsie quote comes back to haunt me as today's game was indeed a game of two halves: the first when we went comfortably ahead, the second when we got worn down and ultimately lost. Thinking about it, looking at how the division has gone this season, it is indeed a division of two halves: one half comprising of almost trivial teams that we beat relatively easily and the other comprising of challenging teams that have me biting my nails on the sidelines.

As the result might suggest, today's game was a nail-biter against a challenging team and, wow, didn't we know it? This has to be up there with some of the most feisty, intense, thunderous matches we've played to date. Whilst the result might be a little anticlimatic, as their coach, I cannot be disappointed with the team at all. The Pumas were excellent, played with heart and the result was simply down to 'well, that's football lads'. An error here, an error there, a free kick given away and you're left with ten minutes desperately trying to get back the equaliser.

What was even more admirable was that this wasn't your normal Pumas lineup as many players were unavailable due to the Easter holiday and, dare I say it, I don't even think a regular Pumas line up would have fared that much better. To make up numbers, we roped in George from our reserve list as right-back and he looked like he had always played for the team. George also meant we could give Ethan a chance to play on the wing. We also had to play Will FN as centre-back, now his fourth time helping out defence this season, and he did a stirling job working with the other Will. Even more impressive was Yusuf, normally a centre-forward, who went in goal due to Stef's absence...

Now, I knew Yusuf would be good as I've seen him play in goal once before, but can I please dedicate this paragraph to how unreal he actually was? For someone with limited goal experience, he is a natural and I mean it that with some keeper training, he has some real potential there. The lad made several crucial saves, including an amazing rescue where he leapt half way across the goal to tip the ball past the far post, arms fully outstretched, and four or five dives to bravely smother the ball, often with a forward's foot already on the end of it. His springiness proved useful catching inbound corners before heads got to it and, it shows he has a remarkably good football brain because he looked for distribution options each and every time and didn't just rely on his long drop kicks. He didn't just go in goal, he looked like he belonged in goal and hoovered up most of the votes for Player of the Match and scooped Supporters' award too. He has much to be proud of – well done!

The game opened to a fairly balanced start with play ping-ponging on both halves of the pitch. However, it was only 9 minutes when Jacob scored for the Pumas from a crackingly well placed free kick. Later that half, Owen ran onto a long ball and, using his speed, was uncatchable as he sent the ball towards the opposition's net. There were several other opportunities, all coming to naught, but showing that we were comfortable exploiting the Windlesham defence.

As a coach, I like to conject what the opposition team's going to do to change things at half time and see if we can preempt this by either making changes of our own or set the team up to steel themselves for what's to come. Isaac, helping us to coach on the sidelines due to last week's injury, noticed that Windlesham were playing what looked like a 3-5-2. This explained why our defence was largely comfortable at rest, marking up their lone forwards, and why Windlesham were looking vulnerable at the back. If they fielded five midfielders, our central three, plus support from our wingers were keeping things under control.

Whilst they could have padded out defence and up front, it was hard to see that this might be the tactic as their midfield already had dual attack and defend roles. As it turned out, the change was to get shouty, dial up the physicality (as Matt's knee unfortunately found out) and have every free player, even if this was more than one, press whichever Puma had the ball.

Suddenly, Jacob found himself three-on-one and the ball needed to be recovered. Adam, on the wing, found two players heading for him every time, making it difficult to get the cross in. Same too for Jack N and Ryan as our DMs as they tried to drive the ball forwards but not places you want to lose possession. If ever there was a criticism, we needed to move the ball much more quickly like we do in training, and certainly before being closed down from more than one angle. In essence, Windlesham worked out how to stifle our creativity and a touch to control the ball before moving it on was sometimes that one touch too many. But hey, I'm not going to criticise given the effort on the pitch.

Despite conceding three times, twice from losing the ball higher up the pitch that started a chain of events, and once from a free kick that curled round the wall to the near post, the Pumas kept battling and did not give up, which gave me immense pride as it shows what the team is made of. Shots were fired off by Adam, George, Jacob and Jack N but were wide of the net – surely a goal was coming? In the last few minutes, Owen made a miracle break through the Windlesham defence like he did in the first half and his second goal was surely in the making but, by now, his tank must have been running on vapours and the shot didn't have the legs to get past the keeper.

The game had become increasingly more physical and the referee increasingly forgiving, thankfully of both sides, but not before Matt was brought to the ground (did somebody say rugby tackle?). Still, it was good to have Zayd back after a month's break but I could feel his apprehension as to what on earth he was coming back to! Ethan battled. The Wills battled. Everybody battled.

On reflection, what an amazing thing it is to get this far into the season before actually losing a league match! However, we're not the only team to have conceded just one game. That team is Ashford (with whom we won and drew against), but they have also drawn one match fewer than we have and so are looking like they might leapfrog us to take the title. What might thwart them is that they still need to play their second game against Windlesham, so maybe today's opposition could yet do us a favour.

But whatever happens, with two wins very likely from our final three (Guildford and Reigate, both bottom-of-the-table teams), we would be guaranteed second place irrespective of how the third game goes. And, if I'm being honest, even if these games somehow didn't go our way, I couldn't be more proud of the team that the Pumas have become. COME ON YOU WONDERFUL PUMAS!