The match started in good spirits, although there was clearly distraught members in the squad when they heard of there being no brioche.
The lads were warming up and getting ready for the game, seeing the Leek lads back from their travels, allowed for some positions to be faught for. The Jake/gerrard battle at full back continues but today gerrard started ahead of Jake due to his effort and skill at training.
Before we get into that though it is worth noting that the rain had fallen the night before and Dave Farr fancied practicing his slide tackles, as such he slid towards the team and got a good 5 yard slide, he was very impressed. What Dave didnt know is that he slid through a lovely day old, wet TURD, this was then all up his leg, on his shorts and top. Classic Bants, although summed up his game very well, should have seen the signs. lol
The game kicked off and the lads did not work hard enough to win the ball back as per request of the manager, in fact as such the opposition got an early throw in as the ball defelcted off Brine. From the resulting throw in that went over both centre backs heads, bounced, then a miskick from the full back, left the ball to sit for the unmarked man at the back post who his the ball across the face of goal to settle in the inside of the side of the net. 0-1 to The Furlong in under 1 minute. We only had one player who actually touched the ball before that goal and that was to put it out for the throw in.
The lads rallied together from kick off and pressed high up the pitch, Keiran went on a run down the left wing and was challenged but got up straight away and the ball fell to his feet and with a touch the Gods would have been proud of, reached out and hit the ball into the back of the net beating the 6'3 keeper.
After 10 more minutes their left winger got the ball and right back David Brine decided he was having none of it and decided to go in two footed and from this recieved a yellow card and a 10 pound fine. Brine then began paying rent for how much he was in the left wingers head. From here about 5 minutes after his booking their left winger saw red and was sent off for abuse to the ref.
From here Coach continued to attack and earned a corner, Keiran whipped it in, it flicked off a defender and fell back post to Brine who scored a screamer that dipped over the keeper and finished in the top bin.
The second half came around soon and The Coach got complacent, Left back gerrard who had a great first half made a mistake early on in the second by trying to cut back inside on their player and lost the ball, from there it was indirect passes, wrong decisions and pointless runs that Gerrard was quoted as saying 'My head went early on, i should have brought myself off but i didnt, I will learn from it and come back stronger'.
Darren Johnson who had also had a solid first half went into the second half missing headers and miskicking the balls, luckily it did not come to much for their attackers, they did not have too much up top. However one mistake left their towering centre half one on one with Step in keeper Holt who had to pull off a worldie save and put the ball over the bar.
This pressure was continuing, you would not have thought we had the extra man, The Coach were pumping the ball up and losing their heads, it was not good enough.
Positives from the game came from Ward at centre back, commanding in the air and using his strength, Did's solidarity at right back, the shear determination from Skipper meakin and Malkin in midfield helped the lads up top, However a heavy night of drinking did not help the Farr Twins up top leaving Keiran to do a lot of unneccesary work.
What we need to work is using all the players on the pitch, too often today did we smash the ball forward while we could have passed across and got more players involved, PLayers like Pete are being played out of the game by our own players. People are running away from the ball, this needs to change, we need players to want to come to the ball. I expect to see this at both training and during the next game. We are improving but need to stay on top of our game and improve where we can.
