This was a very tight game with both sides defensives on top almost throughout. Sacriston probably shaded the first half on possession and chances and played the better football.
Sacriston got into some really promising positions particularly down the right hand side with Solan and Ward getting into good crossing and shooting positions but the final pass or cross never provided the type of service needed to force a goal scoring opportunity.
The one real piece of attacking quality early in the 2nd half ended up deciding the match. Kyle Davis received the ball for Houghton 30 yards out before running at Daniel O’Brien with the ball and in the process he committed the other centre half Rob Draper before squaring the ball at the last minute to his team mate who did well to finish with a hard low shot into the bottom right corner of the net giving Potts no chance in the Sacriston goal.
Houghton had a good spell then for the next 10 minutes but the Sacriston defence stood firm and kept it to 1-0 although Greg Coates tried an outrageous lob from 45 yards out to try to get back in the game.
Sacriston then made several changes in an attempt to get back in the game with Collinson, Horner and Fenton all coming on at various stages.
Apart from rare forays forward Houghton didn’t further threaten the Sacriston goal and seemed to settle for their 1-0 lead. Sacriston had lots of possession, countless free kicks and corners but we just didn’t create any clear cut chances from which to score from.
The effort was there Sacriston ran all game and pressed hard and made things uncomfortable for the Houghton back line that did defend very well.
Towards the very end of the match Sacriston were camped in Houghton’s half but the ball just didn’t bounce for us in the penalty area when we needed it to. Our shooting and set piece play let us down when we required it the most.
Houghton defended very well and were very disciplined but I was very disappointed with our lack of quality in the final third which was hard to understand looking at the number of quality players we had out there.
I feel we deserved a draw just for our work rate and determination to keep going right until the very end. The defence played very well again with Boyd and Rob Draper particularly outstanding but after conceding we needed the forward players to come up with a bit of magic to get us something out of the game which wasn’t quite there today.
We have to make sure we get a win next week at home against Chester Hilda Park to ensure we don’t get dragged back into a relegation dogfight.
