Todays game featured a home fixture against bottom of the tables Eaglescliffe fc and it began with a mins silence in rememberence for our soldiers past and present , On a heavy poor conditioned pitch the football wasn't flowing to the usual standard but the huntsman had total control with half chances falling to Liam Bedford , Paul Jenkins and Lee Carr but it took until the 12th minute for the 1st clear cut chance as some good link up play down the right wing beween Bedford and May and then a pin point curling cross to the back post seen debutante Lee Carr glance a free header at the back post just wide . Then on the 15th minute Richie May this time came inside at the half way line playing the ball up with pace to forward Casper McNally for him to dummy allowing strike partner Lee Carr to run on 1 on 1 with the keeper and buried it to score his 1st goal in the zoo's colors, 1-0. Another 15 mins had passed with still not a single shot from the opposition largely down to the efforts of vice captain Scotty Wright and defensive partners Alex Brown and Stu Murphy it looked likely the huntsman would extend the lead on 31st minute with Sean Jenney , McNally and Carr all linking up on the left hand side of the pitch for before Mcnally slid the ball into Carr's path for him to make the eaglescliffe keeper to make a good save and holding onto the ball , the score stayed the same until the 40th minute again more good play down the left between Jenkins and Jenney before playing in McNally who was wide left of the box crossed in to the far right post for Carr to get on the end of and scored his 2nd goal of the game . 2-0, more half chances came and went before the ref blew for half time with Brown ,May and Bedford again came close . HT
2nd half restarted with huntsman looking like they taken the foot off eaglescliffe were quick out the stalls coming close of getting a goal back within mins resulting in a goal kick however from the resulting short goal kick gk Cook played the ball to Alex Brown who then passed back to the keeper and was quickly closed down by the opposition for the eaglescliffe forward to then put the ball into an empty net on 49th min, 2-1. again with the huntsman struggling to up there game and learn from the mistakes eaglescliffe played a ball down the right and caught a out of position brown on the back foot for the eaglescliffe winger put the ball across the box for the opposition striker to side foot past an exposed Cook on 60th min , 2-2. then huntsman made 2 substitution bringing Matty Devine on for Jenney and Neil McLoughlin on for McNally,
and it seemed to give the huntsman the lift they needed as on the 65th min a quick double pass between Ste Chilver and Brown seen Brown drive into the box on the left looking to cross in the path of the forwards for the ball to rebound back into his path and he smashed it into the back of the net to give huntsman the lead once again , 3-2.
again half chance fell to both sides before Brown played the ball down the left flank for McLoughlin to hold the ball up while support came and laid the ball inside for Bedford to hit a 25 yard screamer into the back of the net on 70th min ,4-2. Shortly after another substitution was forced as Scott Wright was struggling with a groin strain which seen Paul Meek take his place in the 3 man defense and with huntsman looking like they won the game switched off and got punished in the 86th min with a mix up between captain May and gk Cook allowed eaglescliffe not looking to give up and got back into the game , 4-3. with eaglescliffe wanting to get a 4th goal and huntsman wanting to again kill the game it was end to end in the final five mins giving manager Kingston a nervous few mins but final whistle went and Huntsman were victorious keeping a string of victories going and climbing the table upto 5th . some very good displays again by the dependable Wright and Murphy , Jenkins lifting his performance after a poor display the week before but man of the match went to Stephen Chilver who played the holding role infront of the back 3 impeccably winning everything in the air and protecting the back 3 . well done lads next 2 fixtures are north riding cup vs kingfisher fc and hunters cup vs cleveland bay fc .
