With New Durham WMC pulling out of the league over the festive period our remaining games now have much more pressure on them as we strive to pull away from the relegation zone. The lads responded to this superbly by producing easily the best performance of the season and we played some wonderful football in the process.
We seem to always play well on this particular surface and our ball players in the team just seem to relish the fact that the 3G surface at Biddick School is perfect to play on with the bounce so even and true.
For the first time in a long time I had almost a full team to choose from and the strength in depth showed as we dominated this game from start to finish and the only thing missing really was more goals which would have put the balance of the game into a better context than the final 3-0 score line suggests.
We took the lead on 6 minutes when Michael Frazer’s long diagonal pass found Gary Draper on the left hand side and he played the ball into Sean Gregory on the edge of the box who found room to fire in a right footed shot which hit the inside of the right hand post and spun across the goal line to hit the other post before eventually nestling in the net.
We continued to totally dominate possession and our next chance came to score on 19 minutes when Graeme Embleton let fly with a right footed shot from 20 yards out but the JFC keeper pulled off a great save.
Washington came more into the game towards the end of the first half and stopped us having as much of the ball and at least pressured us on the ball a bit more so we didn’t have the time and space to pick out our passes in the way we were doing earlier in the game. Washington also caught us offside a number of times by playing a very high line which did stop our flow at times.
As half time came and went the only worry for me was that for all our good play we were only 1-0 up. However we started the 2nd half like the first and scored our 2nd goal on 48 minutes when Marc Bladen set the team move away with a good run and pass down the right hand side when he played the ball to Sean Gregory who then squared the ball to Gary Draper on the edge of the box who then volleyed a right footed shot over the keeper on to the cross bar but Draper followed his shot in and scored with a left footed shot on the rebound.
This gave the team that vital breathing space and we started to express ourselves on the ball and started to create many more chances. On 54 minutes Anthony Ward got put through in the clear one on one with the JFC keeper but Ward’s shot hit the right hand post. Ryan Grayson replaced Ward on 55 minutes.
On 63 minutes Michael Frazer missed a glorious chance when he put his close range header wide from Graeme Embleton’s corner.
Andrew Solan replaced the injured Marc Bladen on 65 minutes. Sean Gregory went close with a couple of shots during the 2nd half period.
Then on 74 minutes we finally made the game safe when Graeme Embleton’s brilliant long range pass sent Gary Draper through on goal and Draper finished brilliantly with a chip into over the JFC keeper into the top right hand corner of the net.
James Thornton replaced the excellent Sean Gregory on 76 minutes and Sacriston had more good chances to extend the score line in the last 12 minutes of the game through Solan, Frazer, Embleton & Grayson none of which were taken.
This was a thoroughly comprehensive all round team performance and there were some excellent individual performances to with Collinson & Gary Draper particularly impressive. Collinson marshalled the back line expertly again and along with Frazer often started attacks by coming out with the ball from defence and giving the team an extra man when going forward without neglecting their defensive responsibilities.
Gary Draper scored 2 goals and made the other and revelled in his forward role and the midfield looked assured with Rob Draper breaking up the play and doing all the dirty things well alongside the strength and power of Gregory and the usual creativity of Embleton.
The biggest compliment I can pay the side was that Washington did not have one shot on target in the entire 90 minutes and Potts in the Segga goal had very little to do apart from catch the odd cross and clear the odd back pass.
