The Hatfield boys have had a tough 2 weeks with major shake ups and changes being made to The Swan Inns background team and set up. Decisions were made by senior figures on the board and a vote was cast to decide the future of the Swans first team squad, the decision made was that The First XI folds with immediate effect, and Manager Grady O'brien taking responsibilty of all players at the club. Reason for the change was due to obvious poor results for both sides and the new system has been put in place for O'brien to prosper with the new players he has inheritted to achieve his Philosopy at HPSI FC.
The first game of the new era began positively with the Swan starting strongly and playing some fantastic tiki-taka style football, the midfield 3 of newly made club Captain George Garland, Scotland International Jimmy Irvine and fan favourite Sam Gurry linked up brilliantly to dominate the first 10 minutes of possesion. but 12 minutes in Swans Defence let a week cross from the right wing drift over and the unmarked Woodham Striker easily nodded the ball home, a real tuff and silly goal to concede for the Swan after an almost faultless start. Swans Midfield refused to give in though with some real positive runs being made by the wingers Edward Garland and Jimmy Donadio causing Woodham to defend under great pressure, the persistance paid off after great link up play from Edward Garland and Sam Barden resulted in Barden playing a nice pass into Irvine who comfortably equalised. the game carried on from their quite closely contested, with the swan still looking like they could produced a few goals, but unfortunately again Swan lost their concentration and allowed the left winger of Woodham to make a steaming run all the way from the halfway line which resulted in a shot that struck one of the Swan defender on the arm leaving the referee with no choice but to award the penalty, the penlaty was actually saved very well from keeper Ben Smith but the woodham winger jumped on the rebound and saved himself from the embarrasing error. With Woodham 2-1 up it was to say the Swan boys were feeling hard done by having only been undone twice from silly mistakes, the team dug in and again prospered when sam barden was pushed to the ground inside the area when waiting to recieve the ball. The Swans top scorer stepped up and calmly slotted home for his team levelling the swan again at 2-2.
At Half time O'brien made 2 changes in the form of Lawrence Tate and Mitchell Flatts taking to the field. Again Swan began the second half strongly but failed to capitalise on their valuable chances, soon after Woodham nicked a 3rd goal which in reality really hurt the Swan boys after they felt they had put in a decent enough performance and just before full time woodham scored and extremely sloppy 4th, again concentration was key and its something manager O'brien will need to adress in order for the Swan to achieve any silverware this season. There were defintely positives to take from the game with Swan boys producing some fantastic oppurtunitys and playing lovely football at times, but consintancy is what the team needs, so lets hope O'brien can work his magic and get his boys fufilling his Philosophy, as the great Louis Van Gaal has stated in his press conferences "give me time".
