Once again we had bright sunshine and a strong breeze to contend with in a game against the team 2nd in the League. We were down to a bare 11 with Dom, Ryan, Rob and Chiv unavailable. We knew that Hucknall would come at us from the first whistle and got off to a terrible start conceding after only 15 seconds. Hucknall came straight through the middle and finished into the corner. The management team very quickly became concerned that we might be looking at a real tanking. Hucknall pressed hard and pushed us back to the edge of our box for the majority of the first half. But the back 5, if you include Adam were standing tall. Wraggy was preventing anything coming through the centre and Raffy being immense at right back. We did get a couple of breaks forward and were hoping for a penalty when Ollie was bundled over after latching on to Graney’s through ball. On 25 minutes Hucknall found a gap in our defence and a fierce shot brought an outstanding save from Adam. He had narrowed the angle and re-directed the ball onto the top of the bar. The resulting corner was headed away but not clear, the ball was headed back towards goal and Raffy and Adam collided as the ball reached Adam knocking it from his grasp, to make it 2-0 to the home side. With half an hour gone, we caught the Tigers offside. The free-kick was hit long by Wraggy and Simon gave chase, pressurizing the defender into heading it back. His header was too strong, it went beyond the keeper bouncing onto the post and spinning into the net. For the remainder of the half, we were the stronger team. Foxy hit one from 40 yards with the wind which curled and dipped but just not enough to drop below the bar. We continued to put good pressure on but at half time the score was 2-1 to Hucknall.
Hucknall hit us quickly after the break and hit 2 goals in the first 4 minutes of the new half. A blast off the underside of the bar and a precision finish into the bottom corner. Hucknall came forward again and again but we stood strong and made tackles, blocked shots, cut out through balls and put in terrific headers across the entire back four, which now included Graney at right back, with Raffy moving to centre back and Zac into midfield. On 66 a floated corner was headed in by their 6 foot 5 centre-half to make it 5-1 but just two minutes later it was 5-2 Wraggy forced the ball out left and Ollie managed to get to it first, he beat a couple of Hucknall players and chipped a ball in early to the edge of the box. Zac brought it under control superbly and slid a precise shot into the corner.
On 70 a great header from a left wing gave Hucknall their sixth goal and two minutes later a Hucknall throw-in headed away to the edge of the box was returned powerfully low to Adam’s right. He dived brilliantly to get a good strong hand on it but couldn’t prevent it going in, such was the power on the shot. A shot from outside the area went through a crowd of players, Adam saw it at the last second and reacted to make a superb block. We were unlucky not to get another goal late on when Simon got in between the home defence and lobbed the keeper. The ball held up in the wind and the defender got their in time to clear off the line. A real pity as Simon worked hard all game and a goal would have topped it off nicely. In the dying seconds of the game another awesome save by Adam kept the final score to Hucknall 7 Manor 2.
Hucknall are a very strong side and put in a superb display but their manager and coach were full of praise for OUR defensive performance. We conceded 7 but it perhaps could have been 17, although had we had any substitutes, we may have kept the score lower. They were in order with their comments. Defensively, this was one of our most committed defensive displays ever Wraggy had his best game in weeks but Raffy and Adam were both superb and we just couldn’t split them for the Man of the Match award, so it went to them both.
