After a dismal first half showing that was a continuation of the nightmare from the week before, the Lions turned round a 2-0 half time deficit with four goals in quick succession for no reply.
Line up:
Dorian (GK)
Phil (RB), Simon (CB), Matt R (CB), Rich (LB)
Nathan (CM), JP (CM), Lee (CM)
Gary (RF), Scott (CF), Kevin (LF)
JP's pre-match talk was all about how badly we dropped off in the second half of the last game and the need to take our chances when we got them, Didn't seem to do much good as for the first 45 minutes, we were just as bad as the last 45 we played. We could hardly keep hold of the ball, we had trouble getting out of our own half and I think we managed one shot on target that the keeper had to palm away.
In contrast, we had a lot to deal with in defence and made things harder for ourselves by not keeping possession and generally not playing very well at all. Their first goal came from a corner, where the initial ball in was dealt with and went back out to the corner. However, I got done by a sharp turn by their player and he then put a ball in that was missed by Nathan's attempted clearance and it was left to what looked to be their oldest player to poke it past Dorian. He then got a second when they did us on the counter-attack, looping a shot over Dorian as he rushed out.
JP was rightly pissed off during the half time talk, but fair play to the Lions, we came out in the second half all the better for it. Dale and Kris came on for Nathan and Gary, but unfortunately Dale suffered a bad knock during a challenge within the first five minutes that was bad enough for him to have to go A&E (hope it's not as bad as it looked) so Nathan came back on.
We were playing the ball around better, keeping possession and actually looking like a group of players that had been playing as a team for more than 10 minutes. \We had more of the play in their area and the goal seemed inevitable, but it was still slightly fortunate when it came. Their goalie came out to make what should have been a simple gathering of a ball knocked forward but he managed to spill it into the path of Kris who tapped it home. We got the equaliser minutes later when Scott headed the ball down for Kev to knock in from close range.
They changed their keeper as frankly he seemed unwilling to use his hands for anything, but it didn't do them much good as Scott got in on the act. First he received a ball precisely threaded through by Simon (with his left foot no less!) on the edge of the area, turned and put a low shot right into the bottom corner, with the keeper rooted to the spot. Then he put in another low shot straight at the keeper who made the basic error of not getting his body down behind the ball which squirmed through his hands and between his legs for our fourth of the game.
The keeper did redeem himself with a very smart one-handed save from another of Scott's low shots. At the other end, there were a coupl of occasions where their player got through one-on-one with Dorian, but never hit the target. And they did make a loud shout for a penalty when Dorian punched one of their players instead of the ball when going up for a cross, but nothing doing.
As the ref said after the game, we were a different team in the second half and that's why we're playing another Cup match on the 11/11. It would be nice to be that team for the full 90 minutes of the same game though, wouldn't it?
