Scorer: Law
I feel a sense of déjà vu, another decent performance, dominating the game, creating lots of chances but a lack of clinical finishing and a couple of defensive lapses leaving us coming away with nothing yet again. The pitch made playing good football a labour, with the ball constantly sticking under foot in thick mud, making it hard to use much in the way of skill. Several times in the first period we opened up the Norsemen defence, John scaring them with some decent runs in behind and flashing some good balls across the box. Both Banny and Jorge had golden chances to put us in front, Jorge blazing over from 2 yards out, while Banny met a cross with his head from a similar distance only to shave the post. With Norsemen only getting a few half-chances the half time whistle blew at 0-0 and it was anyone’s game.
In the second half we continued to press and knock the ball around well. Terry did well scrapping in the middle and Robin making some probing runs down the wing. It was he who finally broke the deadlock, smashing a great drive past the keeper leaving him with little chance, we were 1-0 up. Shortly after Robin nearly repeated the trick, unfortunately this time the keeper pulled off a brilliant save, tipping it onto the bar. Then against the run of play a deflected through ball from midfield caught our defence off guard. The ball was agonisingly just beyond my reach and as I stretched to intercept it I could only knock it into the path of their forward who went one on one with Dalziel and made light work of the finish. It was 1-1 and we had it all to do again. Still the chances continued to come, Terry had a great opportunity but curled his shot wide, and we should have had a penalty when Dan was clipped in the box. With us needing the win I gambled on swapping a defender for an attacker, and it almost immediately paid dividends… for Norsemen! Their pacy winger broke free down the right and cut the ball into the far corner from an acute angle. It was the clinical finishing we had been lacking and we were down 2-1 with 10 to go. On current form we were low on confidence and heads dropped a bit, but we could and probably should have equalised at the death when Banny’s pass found Dan free right down the middle of the goal, but this seemed to surprise Dan as much as anyone and he snatched the shot wide just when we needed a break. So that was that, one again we were the better side and shot ourselves in the foot. It has been a poor end to the year, but now we will regroup and come back stronger for 2015
Man of the match goes to Robin.
