A first half hat trick from Nelson set the Lions on their way to a well-deserved win at the expense of a misfiring Sporting Renegades side. Two goals from Harry and another from Max in the second half, rounded out a comfortable victory to get us back on track in the league.
Today saw the welcome return to Lions action for our club captain and defensive stalwart Simon with all fingers present and attached. We also had two new members signed up on the day, Michael and Lewis (covering for Paul in goal) and Halim made his season debut, all helping to bolster what was at one point a very threadbare match day squad.
Our first league action in a few weeks since our defeat against Lokmotive against an opponent with whom we've had mixed results and we were on the front foot right from the off. We were ahead within 5 minutes, with that man Nelson again getting on the scoresheet. The ball was worked to the right byline and then pulled back by Ben for Nelson to squeeze the ball in between goalie and near post from a couple of yards out.
He doubled his tally when a trademark long throw from Chris had the ball ping ponging off heads in the penalty area. The ball was going out for a goal kick though before Ben managed to hook the ball back into the goalmouth where Nelson was on hand to head it in.
This time Renegades responded immediately, albeit with the help of a defensive error. With a strong wind at their backs, they were hoisting a lot of long balls forwards and Simon at last man misjudged one which bounced through. Their striker ran onto it and held off Si to send his shot past Lewis.
That goal had been coming as we looked a little uncertain defensively on occasion and put ourselves under pressure more than once. Apart from the goal though, Lewis had a quiet debut and didn't have to deal with much more than a few speculative pot shots from outside the box.
We were creating the better chances with Max in an unfamiliar left wing back role cutting inside and taking on players - probably more than he should have done - and Harry and Ben also keeping the oppo defence busy.
Our third goal was simply down to Nelson's single mindedness in chasing down a weak back pass, catching up with it before the keeper could and dinking it over him to complete an excellent first half hat-trick.
There was still time for Max to go into the book for reacting to a heavy challenge with a few choice words to the ref but we ended the half fairly comfortably.
Ahmed took over from Si at centre back for the second half, Michael came on for his debut at left wing back and should really have scored with his first touch within seconds of the restart.
The oppo seemed to think that the ball had gone out of play on the right touchline but their lino disagreed. Whilst the oppo had stopped, we continued and Max committed the onrushing keeper then squared it for Michael coming in on goal with an empty net to aim for. Instead of a dream start to life with the Lions though, he managed to pass it wide of the post.
A few seconds later, Rob cracked the bar with a fierce long range strike as we dominated the second half. Nelson managed to lift the ball over the bar when he too was square in front of goal with time to pick up a spot. He then saw a header drift just wide of the post as he endured a frustrating second half. Max though, got his reward for his persistence and placement up front, when he chased down a long ball by Harry that was nicely knocked on by Rob. The goalie came out for the bouncing ball but was beaten to it by Max who rounded him and coolly passed it into the empty net.
Harry then got in on the act when Halim did some great work to first chase down a through ball that was going out for a goal kick then to pull it back for Harry to bury for our fifth.
Harry got his second courtesy of a free kick that he got up and over the wall, just squeezing it between keeper and post, to the extent that the former collided heavily into the latter and needed about five minutes to recover from the impact.
We saw out the game with little further incident and to be honest not much threat from a strangely subdued Renegades who didn't register a shot on target in the second half. The 3 points gets us back up the table which is still very tight at this early stage in the season and the performance gives us some encouragement going into next week's big cup match against Wheatsheaf. The new guys acquitted themselves well too, so all in all a good day's work.
