Another win, this time against the team level on points with the Lions. We continued our good form from last week with more of the same - pressing the opposition, getting the ball down and playing football. The line up was:
Phil (GK)
Dale Simon Mike H Gary
Richard Dave JP (Danny) Kyle (Dom)
Brett Lee
We started off brightly and again had most of the possession for the first few minutes, although they had the first shot on goal with a low long range effort. Our first goal came after only a few minutes from a corner by Dave that fell to Kyle in the six yard area whose shot was blocked. The ball broke out to Richard who took a touch then fired home with a sweet strike.
Thereafter, although the oppo came forward quite often, they weren’t able to create many really goal scoring opportunities due to the solid defensive work. Their best chance of the first half came from a corner where the ball broke out to one of their players on the edge of the six yard area. Like Richard, he took a touch and fired in a strike, which was fortunately close enough for me to palm away. Apart from that, we looked more likely to score than they did for all the even possession between the two teams. Have to say that a lot of their possession was due to some seriously awful goal kicks on my part.
The start to the second half was a bit slow on our part and we were on the ropes a bit for the first 10 minutes or so. That said we were still unlucky to concede the goal. They counter-attacked from our corner I think and sent the ball down the middle for the forward to chase with Mike and Dale closing in on him. As I was going out to them Dale’s attempted clearance went a bit wrong and ended up in the back of the net. They didn’t really deserve that but our heads didn’t go down. We started making more chances and Lee had a goalbound effort cleared off the line. Dale made a great run inside from the right and struck a great shot just over the bar. Dave and Brett went close and an overhead kick by one of the oppo went close for them but was just deflected over the bar by Simon. Dom came on for Kyle to push Gary up to left midfield at which point we got the break we deserved. Dave got the ball out to Richard on the right who hit a great cross for Gary to power home. It was a massive relief because we were beginning to think the goal would never come.
We managed to close out the game although we had a scare when I misjudged an inswinging cross and it had to be headed off the line by Mike. In truth though, they had very few serious shots in the second half and Gary beat their central defender to a hoof upfield from Simon to score with the last kick of the game. In this tight division, two wins on the bounce have taken us from 9th to 4th. We have a break next week off then back in action for the Tiffinians derby against Olinda.
