Report from David Winter
After a fantastic performance last week in the League Cup, Sacriston WMC were up against league rivals C-L-S Red Lion in the Guards Cup last 16 at Fram School. The weather was fresh, but sadly the pitch was not up to the standard of the previous week which made good football hard to come by. Sacriston were forced into changes from last week’s success, with only 11 fit/available players to choose from. Forster stepped in to replace Burn, whilst Dean Smith replaced the injured Gav. No subs would prove key in this game!
The game started with both teams having decent spells of possession, with Sacriston forcing a couple of corners leading to nothing. The first 20 minutes passed by with very little in terms of chances or quality until on 25 minutes a speculative effort from their left back, cutting in from 25 yards, took a wicked bobble over stand-in keeper Timmy and broke the deadlock. This was a bit of a sucker punch to Sacriston who were looking comfortable in the early stages. The goal did however make the game finally come alive, with Red Lion pressing hard and creating to clear cut opportunity to extend their lead which Timmy did well to save with his feet.
Sacriston at the other end did start to create chances, with Luke denied a couple of times by good stops from their keeper. Then on 40 minutes the equaliser came, Winter intercepted an attempted a pass from their left back and slipped Forster in down the right channel who in turn cleverly slipped the ball across the 6-yard box to the onrushing Luke Wilson. His initial stop was smartly saved from their keeper but Luke was sharp enough to get to the rebound and smash it home to send Sacriston in at half time on level terms.
At half time the lads all agreed we could improve in the second half and win the game. The game restarted and Sacriston quickly forced two corners and were well on top attacking down the right hand side. Red Lion were still dangerous going forward and again created a sucker punch moment when the clever Beggs cut inside and slipped in their left winger who clinically finished past Tim. To make things worse for Sacriston, Neil Dawson was then forced off with a hamstring injury and with no subs it put Sacriston down to 10 men for the rest of the cup tie.
Rather than sit back and soak up Red Lion pressure, the game was actually dominated from ten-men Sacriston. Luke played a hard cross into the box which was inadvertently turned just past his post by their cenre half – it looked a certain goal. From the resulting corner Summers had his header blocked on the line by the man on the post. On 75 minutes Luke then was gifted the chance from their goalie to grab the equaliser after he intercepted his goal kick however his finish went agonisingly wide.
Red Lion did counter attack when they could, and created chances to seal the game but Timmy stood strong in goal, with Summers, Finchy and Tom playing like warriors with only 3 at the back. On 90 minutes Sacriston were continuing to flood forward and the ball was played wide to Winter who skipped by their left back but looked as if he ran too far with their centre halves both trying to shield the ball out for a goal kick. They somehow managed to mess this up and gave the ball straight back to Winter who cut in on his left foot and smashed in the equaliser. Sacriston were backs to the wall for the rest of injury time but managed to force Extra-Time.
A huge effort from the lads got us to extra-time but we were running on empty in the first period of ET and this proved the case when a long ball managed to get over the top of our defence and their striker got there to smartly finish the ball past on the onrushing Timmy.
In the second half of extra time Sacriston were denied the equaliser after Winter cut in on his left foot from the edge of the box and curled it over the keeper only for a last gasp overhead clearance from their defender denied him the goal. Had this of gone in, Sacriston would have went on to win in my opinion.
However Red Lion then made the game out of sight when a free-kick was parried by Tim and their striker had the simplest of finishes from 5 yards. Sacriston then did manage to get a goal with Luke Wilson playing Winter in who dinked the ball past the keeper to make the score 4-3. This proved to be just a consolation with Red Lion breaking clear and finishing Sacriston off scoring another couple of goals.
Credit to Red Lion who had the energy to finish off ten-men Sacriston in extra time but all the lads need to keep their heads up after a superb battling performance and fantastic comeback to force the game into extra time. With a bigger squad we would have won that game but it wasn’t to be. An exciting game to watch; a tough game to play in!
