A team talk that followed on from the positives of the second half of the St John's game led to Affinity coming quickly out of the traps and taking Bilton by surprise. Immediate pressure put Affinity into the lead with a power drive from James resulting from a weak defensive clearance.
With balls from the midfielders giving Mike and Josh P chance to run the channels well Bilton were on the back foot and making mistakes that Affinity started to exploit with Gary C nearly doubling the score with a header from a skied clearance. A second goal came before the twenty minute mark with Jamie scoring a fine header for the second game running this time from a Gurps corner. During the first 20 minutes Affinity played football like they do in training with slick passing and moving that was pleasing on the eye.
The second Affinity goal seemed to wake Bilton up and they upped the pressure on the Affinity defence. Josh's injury hit season struck again with him hearing a crack around his ankle following a fine tackle in the left full back position. Whilst off the field and with Affinity down to 10 men Bilton reduced the lead with a soft goal with Affinity failing to clear a corner.
Josh hobbled back into play hoping that he would be able to run his injury off but it became clear relatively quickly that he wouldn't be able to continue. Steve replaced him and while Affinity tried to reorganise Bilton levelled and the early advantage was wiped out with the momentum now firmly with Bilton.
The rest of the first half saw chances for both sides with Steve having stayed up after a corner pushing a stabbed shot just wide of the post. It would have been a priceless advantage going into a second half that saw things unravel for Affinity.
Bilton took the lead when Affinity defenders stopped expecting a flag for offside that never came. Three further goals followed without return as Bilton piled forward in numbers exploiting Affinity's lack of shape and inability to keep the ball. It was safe to say that Affinity did not get the rub of the green in the second half and heads started to drop as Bilton saw their chance to increase their goal difference tally.
Although not pretty Affinity still fashioned chances to reduce the deficit and deserved at least one from their determined efforts. Man of the Match goes to Jamie for his goal and battling midfield performance. Other mentions to Mike for his tireless running and James for his fine goal
