The UNITS returned to league action after a 4 week absence due to a combination of ridiculous fixture scheduling and the bad weather
The break on the back of the excellent performance at Taverners was not ideal and to add to this Cuzer again had to do without key players and a host of injuries
JB came in for his debut at centre half as we lined up
Mala, 2ton, Danny, Eggy, JB, Baker, Taylor, Ashton, Coco, Acer & Pountney
Subs were Kieron P, Ross & Gittens
The UNITS started brightly and took only 5 minutes to take the lead, from a Taylor throw Hagley could only clear to the edge of the area where Coco steadied himself and fired home from 16 yards
Despite being understandably rusty we were looking dangerous and shortly after Pountney should have done better when the Hagley keeper could only parry a cross and Lewis shot straight at the grounded keeper with areas of the net gaping
Hagley had some good technical players and passed the ball well but we gifted them an equaliser when from nowhere their forward managed to get 2 yards on Eggy in who trying to rectify the situation brought down the forward. The first offence looked outside the box but the referee gave the penalty however Eggy could have walked as last man, instead getting a yellow, the penalty dispatched without issue
However within minutes the UNITS regained the lead, we won a free kick 35 yards out and Coco whipped in a dangerous ball where Danny Giles got in front of his man to slide the ball home from 6 yards
Shortly after we had a superb team goal wrongly chalked off for offside when after some lovely football Coco broke from midfield and fired over the keeper from 30 yards only to see the linesman flag and the referee in a perfect position to see the goal was onside didn't over rule, very poor call
However, it didn't seem to hurt us too much as on 20 minutes we went 3-1 up when the Hagley keeper raced out of his area to stop Pountney getting clean through however he only cleared as far as Acer who steadied himself before floating the ball into the unguided net from 35 yards, a sublime finish.
At 3-1 it was time for the UNITS to have a steady 10 minutes to keep control of the game but we imploded and let Hagley level things up and gain the momentum
Firstly down our left a basic one two again allowed their striker to get 2 yards on Eggy, as he got into the box he squared to the grounded Hagley striker who still managed to scoop the ball home despite being on his arris 6 yards out!
2 minutes later Tayl's conceeded a soft free kick in a dangerous position and their winger struck a 20 yard strike which beat Mala on his side of the wall, another piss poor goal to conceede
30 minutes gone and 6 goals scored, to be fair we then settled down a bit and started to get back on top, Pountney & Ashton both had efforts blocked as we finished the half on top but on 44 minutes we let Hagley get in front when 2-ton dived in on the wide lad who skipped past him and we were guilty of backing off the player allowing him too much time to cut inside and rifle home an unstoppable shot from 20 yards giving this time Mala no chance
HT UNITS 3 v 4 Sporting Hagley
Cuzer reminded the boys that despite our poor defending we had created plenty of opportunities and the game was still alive with the next goal crucial
It's fair to say on 50 minutes the game took an all important turn when the UNITS played some good stuff down our left resulting in Coco busting into the box and being hacked down, yellow for the foul, Pountney stepped up only to see his penalty saved by the Hagley keeper and the UNITS enable to force home the loose ball
Within seconds of this a hopeful ball forward was mis-controlled by JB allowing the Hagley striker to race clear and he made no mistake chipping Mala from 20 yards, 3-5 when it really should have been 4-4 and game on
On the hour mark Cuzer replaced Eggy with Gittins and went 442 with Taylor dropping back into Centre half
Hagley could have wrapped things up on the break when their wide man cut inside and rattled the foot of the post whilst at the other end Pountney was put clean through but mis controlled allowing the covering defender to block the shot
JB was struggling with a knock and came off with 20 left and Cuzer went to formation number 3 as we now went 3-4-3 throwing caution to the wind, Ross coming on up top
Hagley were now barely getting out of their half and the UNITS really should have got back into the game, firstly Ross did well to rob the centre half, race clear only to fire over in a one on one situation
Shortly after Coco floated in a cross which Acer looped a header over the keeper onto the bar with Ross blazing the loose ball over from a few yards out under pressure
Kieron replaced 2-ton after his ankle injury on debut and it was good to see him back on the pitch
There was still time for the UNITS to have one cleared off the line as Hagley hung on for an important win and the UNITS to get punished for slack defending throughout the 90 minutes
At times we played some good stuff and we created a host of chances but we didn't make Hagley work anything like hard enough for their goals and clearly the management team has some thinking to do about how we can stop shipping so many goals as we won't win matches against the better sides unless we become harder to play against
Man of the match went to Danny Giles who stuck to his task manfully and never gave up the cause
