A heavy pitch and driving rain as the teams kicked off it looked like the team that wanted this game the most would have the upper hand.
Affinity without any of their normal defenders decided to start as they had finished the LOWFORS game with a 3-5-2 formation. St Johns settled quickly and had the better of the early exchanges. Affinity were trying to get the ball down and play but St Johns superior passing and moving lead to 2 first half goals that would put them in control.
Affinity needed to keep the ball better and had a 5 minutes spell at the end of the half where they moved the ball across the park and played the ball the way they were facing which had St Johns chasing for the first time in the game. Prior to this Gurps had headed Affinity back into the game from a Josh P cross from the left. This was first goal St Johns had conceded this year. A second might have followed shortly as a dinked cross from Mike from a similar angle to Josh’s had James stretching for a shot that went just wide.
Affinity started the second half on the front foot and steady built some possession but would go back to two down when a failed clearance fell to a St John’s striker leaving Dale no chance to stop it hitting the net. Affinity’s response was really pleasing and a number of chances followed as they applied pressure down both flanks and through the middle. Affinity’s second came from a goal mouth scramble with Nick forcing the ball home.
St Johns were starting to look a bit ragged now and Gurps had a good chance to bring the scores level but it was Gary who had that privilege with a fine looping header from a Jamie corner. Dale kept things level a few minutes later with a brave save closing down a St Johns striker who had broken through the defence.
James had a great chance to put Affinity in front for the first time after a by line cross from Gurps but he put it over the bar when it looked easier to score than miss. He more than made up for the miss a few minutes later with an opportunist strike latching onto a poor clearance from the keeper firing it into the top left hand corner.
Seeing out games is obviously something Affinity need to work on as St John’s response would be to break through Affinity’s defence two further times and leave Affinity with nothing to show for all their efforts. Even after St Johns 5th goal Affinity pushed for a leveler without success.
Difficult to pick a man of the match from such a battling team performance. Plumped for Nick for his cool head and distribution from the left of the back 3 that 9 times out 10 found an Affinity player
