Old oaks 3 match winning run came crashing to a holt courtesy of a last minute 1-0 defeat against Penfold Rangers.
Missing several key players this was always going to be a tough game against a well organised Penfold team. In truth it was a poor game and there can be no doubting a 0-0 draw would have been the fair result with Oak having more possesion, unusually for sunday football neither team had a shot on target throughout the 90 minutes.
Manager Gunnell made 2 changes from the previous weeks win, the suspended coker and injured rodriguez were replaced by Roberts and Burton. Elsewhere Preston and Carter where withdrawls from the squad with a groin injury and sickness bug respectivly. A first half with little goalmouth action for either side, the closest Oak came was a shot from 20 yards by Hall and a long range strike from Piercey which narrowly cleared the crossbar. Penfold posed little attacking threat with the Coker and Gunnell looking assured at the back. Both sides had forced corners and free kicks but in tune with the game these came to nothing. This was possibly the worst half of football i imagine either side has been involved in all season.
Second half began much in the same fashion as the first, for a team who have created so many chances on a regular basis this season it was surprising we were struggling to string two passes together and prompted a call from a Penfold player ' i cant believe these are top of the league', on this showing you would totally agree with what he said. With no further chances until up until the 65 minute and with a wins apposed to draws needed, Hawken replaced Roberts allowing Shaun coker to move up front with a tactical shuffle from 4-4-1-1 to 4-4-2. The change of tactics did little to alter the course of the game with several long balls forward or passes going astray, one chance of note was free kick awarded for a foul on Gunnell saw wilkinson fire wired, heading into the final 10 minutes Wilkinson was replaced by the returning Alfie Webb who had not featured since November, Gunnell fruastrated with his teammates ability to create any openings ran from inside his own half to force a late corner this came to nothing and as Penfold countered Janes turned his ankle and was replaced by barlow with 3 minutes of normal time remaining. With the game seeminly heading for a bore draw, penfold forced a throw late into injury time, the ball flicked off hawkens head taking it over the head of Summers falling at the feet of Barlow who in his attempts to clear the ball 6 yards from goal could only shin into his own net 0-1. Oak had time to kick off and appeared to force a corner only for the refferee to blow for fall time.
Really dissapointing display, Penfold were equally poor but got the rub of the green late on. We only have ourselves to blame for not creating enough chances and being honest we were lukcy to beat them back in October. Other than a solid defence perfromance from Shaun, matt, Janes & Burton there were very little positives to take from the game. Man of the match today was Matt Burton who has put in another good shift to go with some fine perfomances in recent weeks.
