After losing our first three games of the season the Spitfires showed bravery, desire and great character to record their first point of the season in Division 2. In dreadful weather conditions the outcome was always going to favour the team that coped with the conditions better and made the fewer mistakes.
With a chilling wind sweeping across the pitch it was Caversham that started the brighter getting the ball to their two skillful, quick wingers and putting crosses into the box and testing our defending. The conditions were especially bad for keepers, with a wet ball skidding off the surface, driving rain and a swirling wind to contend with. Caversham scored after 7 mins, when a high and hanging cross into the box was headed by the Trents forward and his looping header caught James a little in no mans land when he started to come for the cross then hesitated and the ball dropped over him and into the net.
However, the one thing the Spitfires have is character in abundance and they started to win the midfield battle with Finley and Zaim wrestling possession and the initiative in the middle of the park. The defence started to get to grips with the conditions and we got our two wingers (Thomas & Oliver) more involved and running at the Trents defence. On 20 mins we created our first clear cut chance on goal from a great delivery into the box a goal mouth scramble ensued, and for the second week in a row we could not got the ball over the line. However, unlike last week from the resulting corner we did score. From a terrific dead ball delivery from Oliver, Finley headed the ball into the net and the match was all square just before half time.
We started the second half where we left off and pressed the Trents all over the pitch. Thomas in particular was imposing himself on the match on the left wing and from one of his rampaging runs he cut inside and shot on goal. To be honest he will hit better shots, but we got out first stroke of luck of the season when the keeper went down in episodes to save it and it squirmed under him to give us our first lead of the season.
The game then became end to end with Trents attacking and the Spitfires counter attacking. James pulled off a fantastic piece of goal keeping when the Trents winger broke the offside trap and was 1 on 1 bearing down on goal. James came quickly off his line and reacted quickly to keep it out. Then Sam S hit a wonderful dipping volley that looked destined for the top corner for their keeper to tip the shot round the post.
Truth be told we were hanging on in the closing minutes with only one sub and fitness draining conditions the last 5 mins seemed to take hours. Finally, with 3 mins to go the Trents scored from a shot that James was able to get fingertips to, but not a strong enough connection and the ball dropped under the crossbar. We saw the last few minutes out and on reflection a draw was a fair result.
I thought that the midfield were fantastic, Zaim, Thomas and Finley all put their best performances of the season, but it was Finley that edged it for MOTM. Despite not winning the boys can be really proud of a well earned point, they played some great stuff in awful conditions and you can see the improvement each week.
