With doubt over whether our match this morning would be played, we were shocked to find a puddle free pitch at Coseley Leisure Center.
Top of the league Rockmount our opposition today and we knew a tough match was on the cards. The first half kicked off with Rockmount starting how they meant to go on, with a passing move right through the LHC midfield but the shot at the end was blocked. The majority of the first half was even with both teams creating chances. Rockmount were solid on the ball passing around with some style but LHC had the more cutting chances in front of goal during the first half hour. The big talking points of the first half happen around the 30 min mark. A Rockmount attack broke down and before the ball could be cleared the ref called a Rockmount lad over and showed a red card for bad language. The deadlock was then broken by the most unlikely of people. The Rockmount keeper had the ball in his own half and punted it up field. Confusion between the keeper and defence meant that no one tried to clear the ball and to his horror, Carl could only watch as the ball bounced over him into the net. Over the next 10 minutes though, Carl redeemed himself after pulling of some fantastic saves and Bob was unfortunate, putting the ball in the back of the net twice only to be flagged offside both times. 1-0 at half time.
Within 5 mins of the restart, LHC faced an up hill battle. A passing move up field from Rockmount ended up with the ball going out to their right wing and in came the cross. Again, the LHC defence couldn't get rid of the ball and it fell to a Rockmount striker to poke home past Carl. LHC shifted to a 3-5-2 set up with Josh pushing into midfield and Luke coming on for Foxy who was off to watch the Villa match (personally i'd have stayed on the pitch!!). It was with this change in formation that LHC started to throw much more forward and the resulting pressure paid off when on the hour Mikey put Brainy through on goal, Brainy ran at the goal but was then pulled down in the area by a Rockmount defender and the only thing the ref could do was give the penalty. Brainy slotted the ball to the keepers right to score his 15th goal this season. LHC suddenly turned into a different team with players closing down Rockmount and fighting for the ball. All the effort paid off on 70 minutes with Robbie clearing a ball into the Rockmount box, the ball fell to Brainy who got his shot away only for the Rockmount keeper to parry it onto the post, up pops Bob though to tap the ball into the net to score his second goal in as many games. The final 20 minutes of the match played out with LHC having more of the chances but unable to find the winner, Rockmount also continued to push forward but the defence managed to soak up the drives forward they did have. The best chance to win the match came right on the whistle when a corner came in and the ball bounced off players around the box. Right back Grovesy was in the right place though but his volley just went wide. 2-2 final score.
A tough game today, and LHC were unfortunate to get the winner after recovering from 2-0 down, although anyone would take a draw from being behind. Some good performances from the lads this morning, Grovesy had a good game at right back, Lee and Webby put a good shift in and worked hard all match. Shane was his usual lively self until he came off, but man of the match for us has to go to Bob. He was asked to drop deep today to stiffen up the midfield and worked hard chasing down the ball and then getting forward to help in attack, resulting in his second goal for the team. Darkhouse up next for us. We'll need to carry the performance and effort over into next to ensure we get the 3 points.
