Woodlands 4 v 4 Pembury
It was our first away trip of the season and unlike all our previous home games the preparation was far from ideal with players, myself included, turning up so late that no real warm up was taken and left the team thoroughly unprepared for a game which we could easily win. Despite all this we still had a strong squad to choose from which included Matt Conroy and Lewis Drury helping us out from the reserves.
The game started and we were still in the car park, changing room or literally anywhere else but the pitch itself. We weren’t talking, tracking and giving the ball away and making Woodlands look like a very good side. With no real time on the clock they drifted down their left and swung in a ball that the attacker was able to make good use of his height advantage and leave both Stef and Sammy helpless to stop us going behind. We managed to force our way back in when Wyles and Ollie, who were particular good in their hold up play won us a free kick which Wyles headed back across goal for Liam to nod in. We hoped this would kick start us in to life but unfortunately it didn’t, we surrendered another goal and went in at half time 2-1 down.
At half time Phil and Liam stressed that we hadn’t started and that we really needed to up our performance levels if we didn’t want to suffer another embarrassing defeat. With respect to the guys we had a much better second half and think we managed to get back on level terms without Woodlands touching the ball as straight from the KO the ball went to Woody, who worked a move down the right that ended with Ollie picking up the ball about 25 yards out and placing a left foot drive past a badly positioned keeper - not to take anything away from the strike at all as that’s what’s been missing in the past, a willingness to shoot and its certainly paying off for Funnell this term with 5 goals in 6 games (his fifth to come later) a fine start to his debut Pembury season. We were still dominating but Woodlands forced a corner which unbelievably they scored directly from! Not to be outdone we forced a corner of our own and up steps Ollie “I meant to score directly from a corner” Funnell who will summarise the goal as “I’d been whipping them in there all day so I thought I’d try and score this time” whilst some of his team mates may be question his claim there was no doubt we were back on level terms with 20 minutes to play. Then came the controversy, which was still debated after the game with both some of our players saying it was a penalty and some saying it weren’t. From the side it looked like their striker had tried to play the ball back and succumbed to his own weight under the pressure of Nick and Calum, however the Ref coincided to give a penalty which saw them in front with about 10 to play and Nick admitting he did make contact afterwards. We weren’t finished though and the ironman that is Jake stormed through two defenders to poke the ball home and make it 2 goals in 2 games whilst only being on the pitch for a combined total of 35 minutes in both. With 5 minutes to go and despite some goal line pressure we couldn’t get the win which would have seen us move to 5th in the table.
We learnt a lesson this week and Phil rightly pointed out that our lack of preparation cost us 3 points today and we must put that right on our next away outing. That said our next 4 fixtures are all at home and opportunities to pick up both league points and cup progression are at stake. As a side we have improved a lot offensively but as a whole team need to get back to our defensive tightness as a whole team that made us difficult to beat last season. Again, numbers and dedication were good and as a team we will get there.
Team:
S.Balcombe
M.Wood
N.Edwards
C.Duncan
S.Palermo
M.Conroy
C.Veli
L.Turner
L.Gent
O.Funnell
M.Wyles
Subs:
H.Webb
J.Miller
L.Drury
