A late show by Dan and a late, late show from Steve (too late to be even named as sub) meant a last minute reshuffle for the second week running but today nothing was going to distract us from our best footballing performance of the season so far.
Crown's only threat was a Johnny Wilkinson punt from kick off. It worked in the first minute as Gary was still re-setting his watch and as they've done it before it wasn't a fluke. They did have 7 more chances to try again from the re-starts which followed our goals but they couldn't repeat the feat.
In the 12th minute Darryl headed on to Kim who's flick found Sam, his lovely cut back was stroked home by Glen breaking from an unfamiliar centre mid role, all square at 1-1. In the 20 minutes which followed we were untouchable. Joel was the heartbeat building from the back and as a team we carved out 7 or 8 good openings in the 30th minute we rotated through eleven passes, re-collected as the play broke down and built again through a Darryl/Sam double 1-2 closed out with a bunker wedge from Sam which left Kim with the simplest of finishes.
Kim had a perfectly good goal disallowed a minute later and another 10 minutes of intense pressure followed during which Sam, Olli, Kim and Lee all went close. In the 43rd minute a sweeping move Ryan/Joel/Olli/Sam/Darryl was finished with a thumping 18 yd drive by Glen - great technique. A minute later an identical passage of play followed this time rounded off by Darryl who had earlier been denied a blatent headed goal after taking a stud in the head in the process.
We re-started on the front foot with Nathan's long shot and Lee's saved header just failing to add to our tally. Five minutes after the re-start, Joel, suffering a heavy dead leg incurred at the fag end of the first half, was withdrawn for Kyle. Whilst Darryl was being treated for a continued claret leak from his head wound, Ryan clipped a ball through to Ollie who returned the favour to Kim who duly nutmegged the 'keeper. Darryl was withdrawn for Josh minutes later as his head cut continued to leak.
It took five minutes for us to adjust to the personnel changes but Kyle looked very comfortable in front of Chippy whilst Josh was a quality like for like change with Darryl. By the 15th minute we were again finding our rhythm and a treble 1-2 between Sam and Kim prised open the leagues tightest defence but was denied by good 'keeping. In the 25th minute Josh showed great strength to chest into Kim's path for Kim to slot home for his hat trick. Although we dominated possession we tried a little too hard to force the openings and we had to wait until the 40th minute for our next goal when a lovely passing move was rounded off by Sam's cheeky reverse round the corner ball to Olli who deservedly bagged a goal for himself. In the closing stages Josh and Sam both sent screamers over the bar and Kyle sent one to the moon from 6 yards out as the game fizzled out.
All in all a good day at the office. We destroyed the league's 2nd meanest defence, we scored 7 TEAM goals involving fantastic movement and technique. We played with commitment, energy, flair and skill and apart from the fluke, we could credit our defence led by Chippy with another clean sheet.
Its hard to pick a MOM from so many very strong performances but Ryan just edged it across the 90 minutes. A return v Sawbo Town next week - that will be interesting.
