4 games to go and 3 wins required to seal 3rd place and a potential promotion for the second season running, this game had all the hallmarks of a potential bannana skin and for a period just prior to half time it could well of been the case as we hit the self destruct button, fortunatley a stronger second half showing saw us run out comfortable 5-1 winners.
8 minutes into the game and following a couple of early corners, another jonny piercy set piece supreme floated into a dangerous area appeared to be landing on the head of a leading scorer ryan coker, however a handball on the line by the UFC defender prevented a certain goal, cue a straight red after just a handful of minutes and a penalty awarded, unusually Ryan coker stepped forward ahead of regular penatly taker Piercey, and calmly burried his spot kick 1-0. For the next twenty minutes we probed for a second goal, several times we were fruastrated when trying to thread the ball through the eye of a needle instead of a more patient build up. Gray was putting in a solid shift down the right hand side both from an attacking and defensive point of view and managed to get in a couple of useful crosses which unfortnuatley came to nothing, a cutback fell to the usually reliable piercey who missed his kick on the edge of the area when well placed. With a handful of minutes left before half time, the sucker punch came a long ball played forward appeared to be causing little danger, bumpstead seemed in control but goalkeeper summers raced out and was left in no mans land when the ball was lobbed over his head 1-1, this coupled with an injury to captain gunnell on half time left us with a few issues to address as we headed into the break.
Gunnell was replaced with Rodriguez, with a shuffle round seeing Shaun coker moving to centre back, and mike o'connor moving in central midfield with rodriguez out as the left sided forward, keen to make amends for a poor final 15 of the first half, we dictacted the second period from the start and withing a few minutes another piercey corner cuased havoc, with the ball bouncing around in the area, bumpstead stuck out a leg and the ball trickled home 2-1. The goal appeared to break the back of UFC dogged resistance and a further goal arrived with some neat interplay between O'connor who jinked past a couple of challenges in the area and fed Douglas who did the same before calmly slotting home, 3-1. The pattern of play continued with UFC barely leaving their own half and it was no surprise when Rodriguez picked out Piercey who calmly slotted passed the keeper from just inside the area 4-1. Wllkinson and roberts where introduced with half an hour to go to give them some vital playing time and to give a rest to ebberson and gray who had linked well at times down the right hand side, from there on in we still had plenty of chances with UFC doing well to keep the score down, one final goal came courtesy of a Ryan coker cut back to Piercey who fired in from the edge of the area once more for 5-1. Despite a hanful more chances we failed to add further goals and the game finished some 10 minutes later.
Not at our best today, the second half was an improved showing.
Man of the match(jointly awarded) - Jonny Piercey & Jason douglas, both outstanding. Shaun coker also deserves a mention for his contribution in midfield and as a centre back in the second half.
