The Lions played their first League in over a month and eventually cruised to a second win of the campaign, helped in no small part by some quite awful opposition goalkeeping. No such problems in our goal though, as we welcomed back Mr Safe Hands himself, Richard Paige.
Line up:
Paige (GK)
Phil (RB), Simon (CB), Matt R (CB), Julian (LB)
Dale (CM), Nathan (CM), Ollie (CM)
Kris (RF), Scott (CF), Gregg (LF)
After playing in two cups and a couple of postponed matches, we've fallen behind in our League fixtures so we needed to make the most of our games in hand and start climbing the table. This is contrast to Oatlands who have played twice as many games as us yet were only two points ahead.
We dominated most of the first half and had a succession of early corners. Dale (also returning from injury) had a sighter on the second one, where he made a near post run but his header though powerful was high and wide. He made no such mistake on his second attempt when he made exactly the same run but this time headed Kris' corner past the keeper into the net.
Their keeper was not the best. His goal kicks never got off the ground in that first half and often went straight to one of our players - we just couldn't convert those gifts into telling shot on goal. Still, given our possession, it was only a matter of time before our second goal came and it was provided by Gregg running with the ball to the right hand byline of the goal and centring a pull back that found Scott who could just tap it in from a couple of yards out.
The third came from yours truly supplying a visionary lofted ball from his position in defence up to Gregg just inside the oppo half (i.e. a blind hoof upfield that happened to go straight to Gregg). He advanced goalwards with it then took a purely speculative shot, which although seemingly lacking in any real power as it wandered towards goal, still managed to squirm underneath the keeper across the line.
We should have been further ahead at half time, but they managed to score with the one shot they actually had on goal. Their forward managed to outpace us to get on the end of a through ball and slipped it past the onrushing Paige.
It just reminded us that the game was nowhere near over and that we still needed to avoid our dreaded performance "drop-off" but we knew that if we got a couple of early second half goals, we would kill the game off.
So of course we conceded again about 10 minutes after the break. A free kick from our right looked to be ending up going out for a goal kick but their player hooked it back across the goal where another guy put in a good header that looped over Paige into the opposite corner.
We had a golden chance to go further ahead when somebody (not sure who) got chopped down whilst making a run in the area. Not arguments that was a penalty and noargument as to who would take it as Gregg had the ball before the Ref had finished pointing to the spot. He was made to wait before taking it, which may partly explain why he managed to roll the spot kick past the right hand past with the keeper going in the opposite direction.
Their tails went up, but although they pushed, they didn't create that many chances and they still had the dodgy keeper. Kris put in another speculative effort and although it went goalwards with a little bit of swerve and spin on it, was still straight at the keeper. He almost seemed to have caught it and then somehow it was trickling over the line behind him again.
The points were sealed when the keeper made a half decent save to keep out erm, someone's shot, but the ball went straight to Scott who smashed it into the roof of the net. Just as well we were 5-2 up before Nathan went on mazy little run, tricking and jinking his way past defenders on our left, deftly manoeuvred past the goalie who'd rushed out, stopped a few yards out, looked up to see the two defenders desperately guarding the line, opened his body up and sidefooted a beautifully curling shot...that went the wrong side of the right hand post. He won't be allowed to forget that one in a hurry...
All told, we fully deserved the three points at the end of the game, which has lifted us three places already. Let's make sure there's more points in the bag come the end of the year.
