After the promising start made two weeks ago the Saturday Reserves came crashing back down to earth with a disappointing defeat on Saturday.
As with two weeks ago the team came out of the blocks flying and dominated the early exchanges. It was no surprise when we took lead after 20 minutes. A fine through ball by Kevin Waterman was clinically dispatched past the on-rushing keeper by Lewis Drury, for his first of the season. Unfortunately the goal led to what was to be our worst 20 minutes of the game. The opposition took control and were starting to look dangerous. The inevitable equaliser came after half an hour when a shot from the edge of the box easily beat stand-in keeper Steve Waterman. This raised Invicta's spirits and they continued to dominate and when Pembury failed to clear a corner, a goal bound shot struck Tony Crouch's hand and the referee had no hesitation in pointing to the spot. The centre forward drilled home the penalty to hand them a 2 - 1 lead. Invicta continued to create more chances and we were fortunate to only go in with a one goal deficit.
The second half started well with Pembury enjoying the lion's share of possession, without really troubling the Invicta defence. This all changed with about 15 minutes to go when Ben Brooker drove an unstoppable shot into the bottom corner. Unfortunately the defence switched off and Invicta regained the lead straight from the kick-off. The rest of the half was played out in much the same as had gone before, with Pembury not really troubling Invicta, who were now happy to counter attack. With only three minutes to go fine work by Steve Lindsey presented Ben Brooker with a one-on-one, whereby he calmly chipped the ball over the keeper before rounding him to slot home into an empty net. With hindsight we probably should have sat back, played out the rest of the game and walked away with an undeserved point. However we continued to attack and with the clock approaching 90 minutes great work from Ben Brooker presented Iggy Crouch with a gilt edged chance to steal all three points. Unfortunately Iggy sent his shot high over the crossbar. From the re-start an uncontested header resulted in the ball eventually making its way to their centre forward to make it 4 - 3. With only a few seconds left Invicta scored a fifth.
All in all a fair result as we failed to put the required effort to beat what were at best an average side. It looks like scoring goals is not going to be a problem this season, we now have to concentrate on the best way to not present the opposition with the shear volume of chances we afforded them today.
Squad:
S.Waterman
T.Bowyer
T.Crouch
G.Knight
T.Gent
K.Waterman
I.Crouch
J.Austin
R.Taylor
L.Drury
M.Wyles
Subs:
A.Whittaker
(for G.Knight)
B.Brooker (for L.Drury)
S.Lindsey (for J.Austin)
M.Rice-Tucker