Midweek games in early season matches always is a big test of a club’s squad but our lads at Sacriston came through with flying colours in a highly competitive goalless draw at Sherburn last night.
Sacriston went into the match with 10 regulars missing and had to also contend with late arrivals on the day and many injuries during the match which resulted in constant re-organising but the players coped with all this amazingly well in the circumstances.
The first half was a pretty even contest with Sherburn having the slightly better chances without really testing John Lee in the Segga goal. Sacriston were playing the better football when given half a chance and with Craig Coates & Graeme Embleton pulling the strings in midfield which kept the team moving forward.
Grant Boyd came into the game to shore up the defence on 23 minutes replacing Jacob Horner who returned to the pitch on the stroke of half time when Craig Coates had to come off as a result of being concussed following a couple of robust challenges.
The game was very even throughout with very few chances and the Sacriston defence stood firm on the night with John Lee doing a great job in the Segga goal collecting numerous balls on the edge of his box and his kicking was superb allowing the team to move up the field and give the defence a break.
Ian Race came in for his Segga debut last night and he played brilliantly never putting a foot wrong in the entire match at the heart of the defence with Danny O’Brien which was a godsend to us on the night and this gave the team great confidence as the match went on.
Paul Middleton also came on for his league debut when James Thornton got injured with 25 minutes still left to go which resulted in Greg Coates finishing the game on the right with Jacob Horner playing on the left with Jack Brennan by now playing in the centre of midfield alongside Graeme Embleton. Paul is a defender by trade but he made a decent fist of being a centre forward and when we got the ball up to him he caused major problems for the Sherburn defence. He very nearly scored when he showed great skill and power in getting to within 5 yards from the Sherburn goal but he pulled his shot just wide at the vital moment.
Both teams tired towards the end of the game which resulted in a few more chances for both sides. Sherburn had already put some good crosses in from wide areas during the game which there forwards should have made more off but they hit the woodwork from one of these on 63 minutes which Sacriston were lucky to get away with.
In the last 10 minutes Sacriston started to enjoy a decent spell of pressure forcing a number of corners and free kicks in dangerous areas which we didn’t make the most off but then on 84 minutes we thought we had scored. Grant Boyd played a brilliant ball over from deep on the left hand side into the centre of the Sherburn box between their 2 centre halves where Greg Coates read the flight path of the ball perfectly and he ran on to the ball guiding his header seemingly straight into the top corner only for James Winter to somehow change direction and claw the ball away with his right hand in the Sherburn goal. It was an unbelievable save.
Then in the 91st minute Sherburn were awarded a penalty kick when Danny O’Brien was adjudged to have fouled the Sherburn forward Nick Marley in the box who went over very easily under his challenge, we just couldn’t effectively clear the ball away from danger. This was very cruel on the team who had put in such a tremendous effort but thankfully the Sherburn player missed the penalty firing wide of the right hand post.
So in the end justice was done and on reflection a point each was a fair result. Sacriston had several players knocked down through heavy challenges during the course of the game and only late on in the game was action taken by the referee with the odd yellow card.
I was very proud of all the players’ efforts during this game who fought like tigers for everything during the match and this was a point well earned.
