Scorers: Tabram (2), Hubbard (2), Gunes
A fairly routine victory for a rampant reserve team on a bog of a pitch at the Manor. We had a very strong 14 that were clearly in no mood for messing around after conceding a last second equalizer the previous week.
We took the lead after 3 minutes setting the tone for the afternoon. Tabram cutely lobbed the keeper from outside the area. From there, chance after chance came and went – we were getting plenty of joy out on the wings, where there was far more grass. OWC forwards were fairly lively, when they could be bothered, as they spent most of the time moaning about the state of the pitch and how someone will break their leg. No-one did.
2-0 came on about 25 minutes, when Les skinned their fullback and pulled back for Hubbard the younger to slot into the corner. We had a chance after chance, but with the goal mouth at the arch end cutting up badly (for the 2nd week running Macca had to go into teacher mode and chuck 6th formers off the pitch beforehand – do not worry, they will be serving Saturday detention for this indiscretion – they can serve as ball boys for our next game – feel free to give them the Hazard treatment).
At half time we spoke about killing the game off, something that we do not normally do. We knew that we were defending the end that was more sludgy, so we needed to keep the ball away from Jase as much as possible.
By the hour we were 4-0 – Tabs producing a carbon copy of his first goal and Mike acting instinctively and diverting a half cleared cross past the keeper. OWC rarely troubled our goal, but did have some dangerously placed free kicks, which were conceded by McLoughlin – ‘You should have had 4 yellow cards’ one oppo player chastised him with.
10 from the end Ozan made it 5 a great move that saw him power in to the bottom corner. All that was left was an appaling piece of greed by Tabs who had about 42 players in the box that he could pull the ball back to on the area to tap home for 6, but elected to shoot from the by-line. Sub next week I think.
So a resounding win, which was satisfying on a day when the conditions were tough. Really important that we keep performance and availability up. We are in the promotion mix, but really cannot afford to drop many more points if we want to be playing Division 1 footy next season.
Fair play to OWC – they never gave up and actually made more of a game of it than the score line suggests. Also they are very polite – – their left back apologised to Hancock’s Mum (who was watching along with his Bishop Padre) for swearing after shanking a ball out of play, saying that his own mother would be ashamed of him.
As Jay Z might say (but probably won’t) ‘On to the next one’.
Team – J Smith, A Smith, McLoughlin, Jeater, Wilding (Jenkin), O Hubbard (Pennycook) , Hancock, Manu (Shaw-Morris), Gunes, M Hubbard, Tabram.
MOTM – Andy Smith or Dan Wilding – drove us forward from full back.
