Finding out that this team finished 4th in Division 4 last year, meant this was never going to be an easy game. They were an organised team who made playing our passing game extremely difficult.
We started off on the back foot and absorbed a lot of pressure in the first 15 minutes. After we finally found our feet, we started playing some better football and against the run of play we took the lead. Aaron played a chip ball over the top of their defence which Dean Iles ran onto, to calmly round the keeper and slot it into the empty net. Soon after this a miscommunication between Danny and Mark let the Kinson striker in, tapping into an empty net. We dominated the next 10 minutes however and after another great bit of play down the left hand side, Jason slid the ball across the box to pick out Dean Iles to bang home his 2nd goal of the game. After we took the lead it seemed to wake Kinson Con up and for the last 5 minutes before half time we just about hung on.
At halftime the gaffer made one change, bringing Dave off and putting Dan on the left hand side, which saw us move to a 4-4-2 formation. The manager of Kinson Con must have put something in the water at halftime as they came out all guns blazing. For the next 10 minutes we were hanging on and after a few good saves by Danny in goal they might have been thinking it was not their day. We made one more sub in midfield taking Kev off and bringing on Martin for some fresh legs to try and stabilise the team, but more of the same was to come. Soon after Mark was taken off with an ankle injury and replaced by Chris, this saw Steve drop back to right back. Wave after wave of Kinson Con attacks were being defended excellently but unfortunately for us their pressure paid off when the centre midfielder ghosted into the box and rose to meet a cross which could only be palmed into the net by Danny. By now we were tired and with 25 minutes remaining our shape started to go and then after a late challenge Steve was injured and could not continue. We were down to 10 men and were under siege by Kinson Con pushing everyone forward when they could. A great double save from Danny kept us in the game and luckily for us a few minutes later we counter attacked and the ball dropped to Dean Iles on the edge of the box who took one touch before half volleying it past the keeper. We were now in injury time and were 3-2 up. One last attack from Kinson Con followed and the right winger put a cross in that looked like it was going out of play, but somehow it just smashed against the far post and into the net. Straight from kick off the ref blew the full time whistle and we gained a well earned point.
All in all, we could have lost by 5 or 6 but we had some great defensive performances today and never really gave anyone a clean shot at goal and frustrated the opposition. In the end I felt slightly disappointed that we conceded right at the end, but to be honest there was nothing that could be done about their flukey last ditch goal!
Onto next week against Winkton Autos.
Up The Squirrels
