Match Day 9 – 28/06/2008 – C’s

JUN

30

The latest round of the C grade season saw us venture west to play the Monarch’s on their ground at Grange.

A host of injuries through all teams at the club had left us decidedly short of options going into this game, most notably we had no keeper nor any options as a back-up so this was going to be a tricky game.

As the game got under way, we took early control going into the breeze. ‘Pipa’ and ‘el Jefe’ were combining well early and we were getting good service down the flanks from ‘Country Boy’ and ‘The Wedding Singer’.

It was when we played wide that we looked the most dangerous and for the first 20 minutes we had plenty of good attacking play with ‘The Flash’ and ‘Captain/Coach’ both getting plenty of the ball in and around the box without causing the keeper too much trouble. That changed on 25 minutes when ‘The Flash’ was played on with a neat through ball by ‘Captain/Coach’ setting him up for a 1 on 1 with the keeper. His shot took a heavy deflection on to the post before rolling painfully slowly over the line. As we peeled off to celebrate the linesman didn’t pay it and the ref called play on when a defender dragged the ball back into play. Our boys began protesting heavily and with good reason as the ball clearly crossed the line, the ref refused to change his mind and we were left to rue a golden opportunity to go ahead.

Before the dust had even had time to settle from that decision, the Monarch’s capitalized on our lack of focus. They quickly went into attack and with our defenders still upset over the bad decision; they managed to find the space to get a shot away. Poor stand-in keeper Adam had little chance of stopping it and suddenly instead of being 1-0 up we were 1-0 down.

That one really hurt but we regained our composure and kept on playing good football. The Monarch’s keeper was proving to be the difference between the two teams as he was solid as a rock while we were mounting regular attack’s on goal. Unfortunately while we were attacking with enthusiasm, we were somewhat lacking at the back. From nowhere we found ourselves 2-0 down when a speculative long range effort exposed our stand-in keeper’s lack of agility. The ball sailed straight over Adam’s head and into the net, 2-0 to the Monarch’s.

Half time was blown and somehow we were 2-0 down despite clearly playing the better football.

We came out for the second half with the wind at our back’s and with fire in our bellies. ‘Baby face’ had replaced ‘The Wedding Singer’ on the left after his hamstring had again pulled up tight and Zavisa replaced Adam in goals. We started the half strongly and again got good service down the flank’s. We forced several corners but couldn’t put anything away and after 10 minutes, ‘The Veteran’ replaced ‘Captain/Coach’ up front. As we were pushing forward looking for a goal we began to lose our shape and the Monarch’s started to get more of the possession. With the space at the back opening up, we got caught again. There was nothing Zavisa could do as the Monarch’s striker unleashed powerful shot into the bottom corner, suddenly we were 3 goals down.

The game got a bit scrappy, with our team desperately looking for a goal and the Monarch’s sitting back defending. A goal did come on 70 minutes though from ‘Country Boy’ who chipped the keeper from the right side of the box. That goal gave us a lift as we pushed to somehow get back into the game.

‘Captain/Coach’ came back on for ‘Lethal’ Cosma as ‘The Veteran’ dropped into defense. Any hope of getting back into the game were dashed when ‘the godfather’ brought down their striker from behind resulting in a penalty. The Monarch’s captain calmly slotted it home consigning us to our worst defeat this season.

The ref blew full-time and we were left wondering how we had managed to be beaten so easily..

The bad decision definitely broke our momentum and playing without a keeper left us dangerously exposed at the back. This defeat was hard to take……next week we host Handorf.

Leigh McGillick