In the end Sunday turned out to be a good day, we ended up winning a tough fixture and Simla dropped two points to Gardeners. For a while though it didn’t look that promising particularly in the second half when we couldn’t convert our opportunities in to goals.
We started off o.k. although it was evident that we hadn’t played together for a few weeks as we were not as cohesive a unit as we would normally expect to be. Too often we were playing in three lines across the pitch and as such were failing to sufficiently support each other. As the half progressed we did though get better and eventually scored when Woody, making one of the runs beyond the forwards that we were lacking earlier, got in to the box and was pushed as he was about to approach the keeper. Wardy calmly blasted the penalty home for the lead.
In the second half our support play was better although we were at times sloppy in possession and guilty of giving the ball away. From such a mistake Invicta equalised in the 58th minute when having defended well we misplaced a pass and they moved the ball across the park before striking a good shot in the top right hand corner. This appeared to kick start us in to action and we became more dominant and enthusiastic in possession. The introduction of Peter Bukovec down our right and eventually Harps up front started to create space around the Invicta back four. Openings started to appear, however a combination of bad luck and lack of final ball looked like costing us the points. Finally though we got the break through when with three minutes of normal time remaining the ball broke to Alun Evans on the left hand side of their box and his low cross back across the face of goal was side footed home by Marc Wood. This forced Invicta out and in the five minutes of injury time that was played they forced us deep in to our half. This did mean though that they became exposed at the back and in the final minute Harps was played in and calmly finished a one on one with their keeper to seal the game.
Not one of our stronger performances although we deserved the win. We will need to improve in the weeks ahead although hopefully this fixture will have at least blown away the cobwebs.
Team:
L.Baker
A. Lindsey
O.Allman
N.Coxon
I. Ward
M.Wood
G.Manser
M.Lester
L. Gent
A.Evans
M.Millins
Subs:
P. Bukovec (for Gent)
S.Harper (for Millins)