Maruaders seek revenge as justice falls Match Day: 3 Opposition: Tuscan Raiders Venue: Upper Hutt College With the excitement of avenging our cup defeat everyone arrived for our second appearance on the new look pitch. The gods had also booked the occasion and provided fine weather as to make sure that a fair game of football could be played. With Fold still out, positions where given to first time Jason and second time Shaq to make up the marauders squad for the day.
Whilst putting up the nets it was quieter than usual and everyone seemed focused on their role and where keen to get the game underway. With my favourite ref standing on the circle I was not going to be told to get the ball this time and I placed the matchball on the center circle. With coin in hand the visitors where asked to call. The call of heads came and with a dive and bobble heads came up which was disappointing for me. Anyway the teams stayed as we where and it was our turn to kick off.
The first section of the game was well fought. With solid tackles coming in from both sides. The Tuscan Raiders in their orange strips (for the love of god why wouldn't you pick a different colour) broke well and forced desperate tackles from the back line. Justice much like he was on cup day was causing trouble and beating usually one or two players each time he received the ball. A couple of great standing tackles from Matt Wyllie certainly slowed him down on a couple of occasions though. The first half for the Marauders saw a majority of our attack going down the left wing, with great runs from new comer Jason who delivered a number of good balls into the box. There where also some great combinations between Adam, Dribble and Fred which helped release Jason on numerous runs. Unfortunately for a hung-over Davies's who’s last nights heavy drinking session had left his complexion a little whiter than usual. He wasn't able to get on the end of any and finish them off.
After many attempts at goal it was the new comer Jason who slotted one past there keeper into the bottom right corner of the net. 1-0 to the Marauders! It was at 1-0 when the attitude of the Raiders changed. It was certainly obvious at the back that their inability to get that final ball through to their strikers was starting to play on their minds. Even when they did we shut them down or the ball was snapped up or punched away by keeper Josh. There is nothing better as a defender than seeing your own keeper coming out to punch or catch a dangerous cross. Great stuff! With the frustration mounting the Raider’s strikers started cursing and shouting at their team mates to do better. As the unease of their camp rose our attackers continuously where able to get on top of there defence and started to link some passes which created scoring opportunities. One of these sessions of play led to Mark being one on one with the keeper and he slotted the ball sweetly into the bottom left hand corner to make it 2-0. Come on Marauders this is superb I was thinking!
Keeping with last weeks subbing regime Dave A was keen to have a quick rest. Adam decided to slip into the central defensive role for a little bit. He wasn't long in central defence before Justice was one on one with him. Justice nudged the ball past Adam at the same time Adam met him with a good Porirua style shoulder and sent Justice to inspect the pitch quality. For some reason he didn't like what he saw and shouted you've been doing that all day. At which point Adam stopped turned around and said excuse me this is the first time that I’ve even been near you. For some reason this bought Justice to rage levels more than he could control and with me and Adam standing over him he decided to grab Adam's throat and give him the pointy finger. The ref and many other players thought this was ridiculous and proceeded to reach into his pocket and produce a yellow card. Obviously the minority striker thought that this was an attack on his homeland and decided to take further action via picking up the ball and throwing it at the ref who was standing 3 meters away. The ref turned around and said I’m giving you a chance. Justice not wanting a chance then walked up to and pushed the ref not once but twice. I think that second time was after the ref produced the red card. It was left to a rather over weight white female to step in and tell the naughty black boy to sit down which apparently he did whilst crossing his legs. Unfortunately for him I don’t think he’ll be playing football for some time. The funny thing though was at half time the ref said I couldn't believe that his name was Justice ... argh classic stuff.
With Justice off the field and the Raiders down to 10 men it was time for the Marauders to step it up. We did this through Tim who hit a crunching bobbling ball through a series of players and into the bottom left corner of the net. I will stand up here and say I thought Tim had a great game and in my eyes was player of the match. With the score at 3-0 the first half was ended. The talk in the circle which once again had an orangey flavour, thanks fold, was of how stupid and just plain ridiculous Justice's behaviour was.
The second half was an interesting one and shouldn't really be given too much lime light. It was a half in which the Maruaders tried a number of different combinations. It was also a half in which we played a continuously fast build up style which left huge holes in the midfield. It was quite easy to see that Adam was shattered early on in the second half. This led to some very unstructured football. The good points that came out of the second half was that we switched our attacking from just going down the left wing to going down both sides of the paddock. This saw some great runs by Shaq and on occasions a good delivery into the box or strikers feet. We did create a number of chances and we did butcher a good number of these. I think it’s fair to say that wooding, myself, and Davies all butchered chances where we should have certainly done better. This does happen though. The other disappointing fact of the second half is that we lost our clean sheet and let them have a conciliation goal at the end. I personally felt that the goal was soft but it still counts none the less. It wasn't long after this that the ref bought the game to a halt and revenge was sweet.
Even though the second half saw plenty of room for improvement we came away victorious from the only team that was able to beat us last year. After the game it was off to the local and to say farewell to number 8 as he heads to Vancouver to chase scanny and maybe the odd grizzly bear until the snow returns. It’s been a pleasure playing with you Davies and on behalf of the team i wish you all the best. For his farewell a platter of deep fried goodies arrived which were devoured by the team as well as a number of jugs.
Well done boys!
Fines:
Butchered Opportunities: Davies (paid), Dribble, Shirley
Sportsmanship Awards: The supreme award goes to Justice!
