Two mistakes, one by the referee and one from our defence, certainly had a massive impact on the result today. A ball whacked with power into the body of a defender from short range should never result in a handball decision, however the referee was swayed by the vociferous demands of the Kestrel’s manager and a penalty was given. Having said that, we had worked hard this week on quickly closing down the opposition in dangerous positions in and around our area and had we done this today the penalty incident would not have happened.
The second mistake was, frustratingly again, something we had been working on in training; leave the ball for the keeper!!! Unfortunately the defender whipped the ball from the advancing Cole’s hands and a soft clearance went straight to a Kestrels’ player who couldn’t miss with Cole out of position.
For the second game running Cole had deserved a clean sheet for the great saves and goal kicks he had made today.
Up front we weren’t much better; our forwards didn’t play high enough up the pitch, leading to a congested midfield and very little room for our passing game. They didn’t use what space there was and didn’t attack the penalty area so by the time we were chasing the game, passes couldn’t happen and shots were blasted high and wide.
In fairness, the Kestrels were up for this game and defended fiercely. They seemed to have more energy than us in the first half and managed to get behind our defence several times. Without Cole’s efforts in goal the score line could have been much worse.
After half an hour the Wolves started to play a bit better and Nathan managed to get a goal back from a corner (that for once got past the defenders at the front post). With ten minutes remaining it was all Wolves pressure and no one could fault the effort put in by the boys in trying to find the equaliser and even a winner. At the end the Kestrels were screaming at the ref for the final whistle. The Kestrels really wanted this win and their manager almost did a lap of honour when the final whistle went.
It was probably our least convincing performance of the season but having said that we weren’t outplayed and could have won the game; we made a couple of mistakes and they didn’t. That’s football and when you’re at the top, every game is a cup final to the opposition.
Fortunately, we keep top spot in the league with the Red Arrows and Samurais also losing but things are tightening up and we still have a few tough games left.
Plenty to work on with the boys, defensive positioning and closing down quickly, quicker passing and better use of space. Although we scored from one, we had several corners which were too easily dealt with at the front post and actually resulted in quick breaks and pressure on us.
I can’t fault the effort of the boys today and sometimes a setback like this is needed to kick on to the next level. We have won our last couple of games without actually playing as well as we can and maybe this is the kick up the backside we needed.
