Report by Club Secretary Matt Eagles
Club AZ left Mary Dendy chasing shadows as they thrashed the home side 9-0 at Great Warford . In blinding winter sunshine AZ took a 4-0 first half lead with Scott Meszaros scoring twice inside fifteen minutes and the lively Steffen Backer-Rowley adding a third on thirty five minutes steering the ball past Matt Robinson .Less than a minute later Meszaros completed his hat-trick shooting low into the bottom corner and he had a hand in the fifth too shortly after the break as he saw his free kick from just outside the penalty area richocet off the Dendy wall to an unmarked Nic Dobson making his first start after injury four yards out who gratefully stabbed the ball home. Five became six within forty seconds in a disastrous start to the second half for Dendy. Adam Taylor caught the trailing leg of Rob Thorpe in the penalty area and referee Paul Worrall awarded a penalty . Meszaros , brimming with confidence after his first half hat-trick added a fourth , smashing the ball straight down the middle of the goal. At 6-0 the game was well and truly over but such was AZ’s dominance they soon made it 7-0 with captain Lee Johnston rising high to power in a header from Aaron Loftus’s corner .
With half an hour remaining AZ rang the changes –with Otis Williams already on , Chris Wearing and Jamie Hodgkinson joined the frey and it took Hodgkinson less than six minutes to open his account and make it 8-0 and then a fine run and shot by Backer-Rowley with ten minutes remaining ended with Hodgkinson adding a second tapping home from three yards.
It was a disappointing afternoon for Dendy but they were beaten by a much better side on the day and the result was never in doubt - It wasn’t all doom and gloom however as several players from the losing side still came out with considerable credit – none more so than Steve Rowlands who never stopped competing .
Report by Assistant Manager Matt Eagles
All the good results and good form came to a crushing halt today against a very good CLUB AZ. The only thing the same as the CLUB AZ league game was CLUB AZ were 4-0 up at half time.This time unlike last time when DENDY fought back to lose by a respectable 5-3 there was to be no come back fight. Dendy had people short at the back toda...y and really missed CERBO and Ian. Even though their was luck in both of CLUB AZ's opening two goals they were always the better team. They were as always a very good passing side. They seemed a big young side full of energy. As always when the chips are down Dendy started to get onto each other and i think the team were all happy when this game was over. For me today there were no major surprises we still struggle at the back and against the good sides we struggle to support when we attack. It also showed the gap in quality in the league between the top and bottom (though saying that OLD ALTS who we beat last game beat WILMSLOW TOWN 3-2 today at WILMSLOW) I have said it before and will say it again even though it sounds defeatist you need a plan B to short up shop when things are going bad.
Donkey today was Adam who seemed out of sorts today not his normal positive to the end Adam.
Man of the match just beating Steve was Mono. It was close and between the two who tried the hardest to keep the game competitive.
Food was chips and sausage rolls at the pub.
Lessons i still think we need to keep the shirts back until kick off. We need a plan when things are going bad. We need to improve the defending (bit obvious after losing 9-0 but even in games we are doing well in we concede too many easy goals which puts pressure on us to score goals)
