Goals: Kanga, Doddimead
Unlucky was the end ought of this game. With a few cry offs from my regulars I managed to strengthen the back, where the cry offs had been.
A solid, yet not wonderful, start to the game kept the scores at nil all for the first 15 mins. The Opposition were high flying and immediately you could tell their quality. They had pace and skill up top which exploited a tactical flaw in our setup. As we weren’t getting blown out the water it was too tempting to leave things as they were. With solid work in the middle by The Wolfman and Peach and a good defensive command we slowly started to press up thr pitch.
A bendy strike, effectively ended up as right angles by the time it went in bamboozled the oppos keeper. Canga had scored a goal to keep him in touch of the low scoring 9s golden boot.
Typical changes at half time brought a few debuts. Wanting to keep it solid for the first ten, we sadly conceded early on. With the pitch cutting up like an angry butcher playing the ball arouns was becoming trickier. Fortunately that impacted them more than us. The tactics let us down again and had us exposed. We had conceded a 3rd, leaving us much to do against the top team.
I went for a tactical change to give us more structure at the back. This nulified their threats for the time being and we began to attack. As the pitch opened up its pores so did the spaces. Doddimead struck a low strike amongst an onrushing keeper. With 10 mins left we had time for an equaliser. We pressed and pressed and the final part just came short.
We deserved the draw after the extravagant late pressing but it was not to be. A bitter blow after another logistical nightmare. Alongside me doubting if I have anything to offer at all and with a few mistakes to learn from it wasn’t a great day.
There were some decent performances out there, Minton had a great game. If only we could of got him the ball more. As did josh hyde in his first game back in a long time. But the AP player of the game was Oliver Peach who fought till the end.
I’ve personally replayed the game in my head and discussing the game with players it helps to know what to do next time. React quicker and keep working are the two things I took from the day.
MoM: Peach
