History repeated itself from last season: Back then we smashed Oatlands 8-1 at home then contrived to draw 3-3 with them in the return. This season we comfortably beat Oatlands in our first meeting less than a month ago due in no small part to their goalkeeper having an awful game. This time around they went with "Mouldy" in goal (apologies to him if that's not the correct meaning or spelling!) who simply had the game of his life and could have cost us all three points, were it not for Scott's last minute equaliser.
Line-up:
Phil (GK)
Adam (RB), Simon (CB), Matt R(CB) Kyle (LB)
Nathan (CM), JP (CM), Dale (CM)
Gregg (RF), Scott (CF), Gary (LF)
We knew it would be a tougher game than the last time around but we dominated the early play, virtually penning them inside their own penalty area for the first few minutes. This made it all the more galling when they managed to score on their very first attack. Their midfield got a through ball up the pitch, which at first seemed as it would run through into the penalty area where I'd come out to gather it. However, the bobbly pitch held it up just outside the area, their forward squared it to his mate and he managed to nudge the ball goalwards, trundling agonisingly slowly but always just out of reach over the line. Always a crap feeling as a goalie when the first time you touch the ball is to pick it out of your net.
Felt much better only a couple of minutes later when Scott - who it has to be said is absolutely on fire at the moment - produced another of his shots on the turn which flashed past the keeper into the net. Can't remember who got the assist.
That seemed to settle us down and we had plenty of chances to get a second. Gary cut inside from the left and arrowed in a more than half decent long range effort that seemed to be heading for the top corner but the keeper managed to divert it onto the bar. Scott latched onto a poor backpass from their defender and tried to lob the keeper but he got enough on it to put it behind for a corner. We had loads of corners, shedloads of shots, but couldn't break through. At our end, they had one decent effort that went in low towards the near post that had to be dealt with but they otherwise threatened very little.
In the second half we again went behind to an early goal. Their left winger managed to get a bit of space off Julian and curled a right foot shot just inside the top left corner. True it was a peach of a shot, but frustrating to go behind against the run of play again. No question of heads dropping - far from it. We were pretty much all over them, but time and time again we couldn't get past their keeper. He made some outstanding saves from Gregg, Scott and Gary and deep into the half when we had 4 corners in a row from first our right then 3 from our left, he made a last ditch save with his leg to keep out Dale's header.
We finally got through with a couple of minutes remaining when yet another corner from Gary got flicked towards the back post by Gregg and Scott was there practically on the goal line to smash it home.
There was barely time for a couple of wild efforts on goal before the final whistle brought the curtain down on a frustrating day when we could have gone fourth with a win as none of the other games went ahead, but were instead simply happy to snatch a precious point.
