Magic already seem to have a habit of winning semi-finals, allthough beit both have been against Twydall.
What seemed to be a bad start to the day with the kit not turning up till kick-off and being told we'd be reported to the league, no warm-up and with no 1st choice, 2nd choice or even a keeper turned out positive in the end.
Magic started off with their normal formation of 4-5-1 as we were playing up hill and started very positively with good passing movements from the start, defensively we looked very solid and the midfield held their positions well to break down any Twydall attack. Unfortunately for Mark Peters he got injured not long into the game and was replaced with Mike M who carried on with the good work. Magic created chances within the first half hour but unfortunately didn't capitalise on any of them and just after the half hour a Twydall player was allowed to drill a ball from 25 yards which took a last second deflection of one of our Defenders feet wrong footing the keeper.
Not to get our heads down we kicked off again and started to create a few more chances straight away and literally a couple of minutes later Dan managed to chest in the equaliser from Austin's shot from the corner of the 18 yard box.
In the second half we changed to 4-4-2 with Dan providing more attacking assistance to Austin and again creating some good chances without conversion, Mike W came on just after 60 minutes for Ola with Austin moving to the left wing and again showed how deadly he can be from 30 or so yards out with some good strikes that went over the bar. Rich Dowling came on for Austin not long after to give us again some fresh legs and pace and started to show us how capable he is in midfield as in defence with some good movement and ball play. Twydall also pressed hard in the second half but fortunately the defence were able to cope with all of thier attacks allbeit a few dodgy catches by the keeper.
With moving into extra time the hard rain and hailstones came making it a very difficult game for either side and it looked like it was going to go to penalties but on 119 mins with seconds to go Alex pulled back their attacking player giving them a free kick just outside of the 18 yard box, fortunately for Magic the free-kick went over the bar and then it was full-time.
I asked the ref if we could have the Pens on Pitch 1 as the goal mouths were awful and he agreed. We won the toss and therefore decided to take the pens first.
Anthony drilled into the right corner going just under the keepers arm 1-0
Twydall hit the cross bar
Richard Dowling drilled into the left corner again under the keepers arm 2-0
Twydall drilled just past the keeper 2-1
Dan Williams screemed a ball into the top right corner 3-1
Twydall had their Pen saved by the keeper 3-1
Rich Enderby then struck the inside of the left post making it 4-1 and giving Magic the victory.
Well done lads, let's keep up the good work rate and effort for the start of the Season !
