As expected Sunday’s encounter with Invicta was a tough affair. With both sides needing to win to maintain their title challenge. On a very difficult surface it was always going to be a close game with the side making fewer mistakes or taking their opportunities likely to take the points.
This was exactly as it panned out. Both teams were cautious defensively with the result that neither made the sort of errors that were predicted because of the bounce. Offensively both sides played more direct football than they are perhaps accustomed to but, outside of the opening quarter, resolute defending restricted the number opportunities. For the first fifteen minutes this was not the case as we attacked well from wide positions with Martin Millins particularly effective down the right. Several good crosses were put into the box where Dave Burren and Paul Emblen were causing real problems in the air, unfortunately the resulting headers either lacked power to beat the keeper or fell short when nodded back across goal. As the game progressed we began to rue the fact that our early dominance had not produced a goal as Invicta pulled themselves back into the game and we stopped getting the ball wide.
At half time we felt comfortable in that they had created very little but stressed the need to get back to attacking from wide in the belief that the goal would come. We had the better of the second half but again failed to take the chances that came our away. Substitutes Liam Gent and Marc Wood both had made good impressions and had opportunities to win the game as did Millsy in the close moments when following a good run he drove his shot wide. The best chance, however, probably fell to Invicta with virtually the last kick off the game but their forward hooked the ball over the advancing Chimp and fortunately over the bar as well.
At the whistle we felt an air of dejection in that the result appeared to have taken things out of our hands, however on hearing that Simla had beaten Gardeners we knew that it was ours to lose again and that two wins in the final two games would see us as champions. No game now for two weeks and we hope that some more results going our way may just take some pressure off before the crunch game with Artois on April 29th.
Team:
L.Baker
A.Lindsey
S.Hunter
N.Coxon
I.Ward
M.Millins
M.Lester
G.Manser
D.McGahan
P.Emblen
D.Burren
Subs:
A.Evans (for Emblen)
L.Gent (for McGahan)
M.Wood (for Lester)