| Match Report |
The men's 2's welcomed Okehampton 2's. Right from the off it was clear that we were the dominant force on the pitch but the match never really reflected this. Against the run of play Oke went ahead when the ball was not cleared from our D and fell beautifully to their player who confidently smashed the ball in. We equalised shortly afterwards when a glorious strike on a short corner rattled the backboard from a Liam Champion shot. We then went behind again only to equalise again when an Oke foot stopped the ball on the goal line. Ben P-R stepped up and calmly flicked the ball fast and wide into the net. We then had a great passage of play going 2 goals clear thanks to another flick converted by Sam P-R with equal poise to his brother in pretty much exactly the same place and then Jake Horton hammered the ball home after a strongly worked team effort. We then allowed our concentration to drop and Oke came back at us with 2 more slightly softly given goals. At this point they were full of confidence and hungry for the win but up stepped Mike Parkinson who thwarted their dreams smacking the ball home after Liam Champion delayed his short corner shot for just the right length of time allowing Mike to swoop in and clinch the match for us. There were several great individual performances today from the likes of Jake Horton, Elliot Grange, Ted Dyer, Ben P-R and Liam Champion to name a few. We never really gelled as a team today and made the win much harder work than it should have been but ultimately we walked away with the win and proved that we could handle the pressure and tension at the end of the match. 5 separate players scored which also showed the depth of skill in the team. Nice to get the points and it puts us in a strong position in the table. Thanks to Jan and Marcus for umpiring today and dealing with several difficult situations.
|