Zion and The G.A battled out an entertaining match, which ended in defeat for the Lions. The 6-4 scoreline was entertaining for the neutrals but signalled the end of Zion's hunt for silverware this season.
The game started with a slow pace. Zion defended brilliantly in the opening stages, frustrating the league leaders with tight marking and good tracking. They also proved to be dangerous on the counter attack. A couple of forrays forward saw shots narrowly miss the target. Then came the breakthrough, David Jones played a neat one-two with Tommy Powell and as the midfielder went through on goal, he found the late run of Tony Dain with a simple pass. The breaking defender had a simple open goal to aim at, and made no mistake giving Zion the lead. Despite resolute defending Zion then conceded. It was a long range effort that found its way to the net through a bunch of players gathered inside the Zion area.
The second half promised to be a bit more open as more space appeared. It was Zion that spectacularly regained the lead. A neat pass from Nathan Wriglesworth found Powell, who controlled the ball, and then with very little backlift produced a fine shot into the top corner from outside the area. The lead was short-lived. A long range effort rebounded off Steve Winter and a G.A player was fortunate enough to tap the ball into the net. The G.A then looked like they were going to hammer Zion as two long range efforts added to their lead, making it 4-2. Wriglesworth reduced the deficit when he combined with Powell. As Zion searched for the leveller they were left exposed at the back and found themselves chasing a greater margin. First a G.A counter attack left a one-on-one situation which the striker won, making it 5-3. That was followed by a fortunate long range effort deflecting off the foot of Jones and into the bottom corner of the Lions net. Wriglesworth did grab himself another goal, when he finished neatkly after a Jones through ball. However, it was too little too late as far as Zion were concerned and they trudged off the pitch beaten men.
Manager Tommy Powell stormed out of the post match press conference when reporters asked him if he felt his team were good now a mid-table side. Tony Dain was left to speak with the media and he said that the Lions were unfortunate to have fallen to the G.A, "The title race is over for us which is a shame but we gave it everything tonight and were unlucky not to have come out on top. They got the lcuky breaks that we didn't. The deflections, the long shots that crept through everyone. We worked some brilliant chances with good passing football, and scored some nice goals. It just wasn't enough. We'll look to the next few games to get some momentum going into next season. We've now just got to try and finish as high up the league as possible. 2nd place isn't beyond us."
