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Sat 05 Mar 2022 ·  Invicta Men's Division 1
Men's 2nd XIGillingham Anchorians 1
3
3
Pushing the league leaders all the way
David Judge11 Mar 2022 - 13:56
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We're tough to beat....
Over the course of 5 weeks we have/will play the 4 teams above us. We drew against Cliftonville and took another point today from Gillingham Anchorians who were leading the league. They are a hard running side with very direct forwards who score a lot of goals. We had the luxury of 12 players this week after taking 11 previously !
For the first 10 mins of the game we were poor and were indebted to our skipper & GK Matt who kept us in it, making a number of fine saves at close range. This led to us conceding a goal from a short corner with a slip right and flick move that worked well.
We couldn't set up and effect a high press for long periods but we did play a shift defence that looked to isolate individual players once the ball had gone wide. We did this effectively and won a high number of turnovers which gave us good platforms to attack. Our back line went to 1 on 1 marking allowing our old man sweeper to step and focus on late runners which ensured we were not opened up many times.
We worked our way back into the game by transitioning the ball quickly from side to side and this led to creating free channels moving forward. From one such move Luke Barrett attacked from wide left and won a short corner which Tim Sylvester dispatched in trademark style with a bottom right finish. Our other half back Tommy Barlow then crashed a ball in from the right hand side which Tim stopped, turned on and again smashed past the goalie for a 2-1 lead.
We were playing confidently at this stage only to concede a poor goal that relied on a number of fortuitous breaks and bounces of the ball. We came straight right back with our other forward David House muscling his way past his defender to get a deflection on a hit in and loop the ball over their goalie. 3-2 up and we looked to see the game out. We then suffered a blow as Harry Turner, our influential centre half was struck painfully on the foot and had to leave the pitch. We faced heavy pressure for the last 5 mins and unfortunately this resulted in one final attack which again Anchorians converted.
Very frustrating as that is twice this season that we should have won. Fair play to Anchs, they never gave up and you can see why they are challenging for the title. However only 1 point for them means Holcombe now take over as league leaders who we meet next Saturday.....
For the first 10 mins of the game we were poor and were indebted to our skipper & GK Matt who kept us in it, making a number of fine saves at close range. This led to us conceding a goal from a short corner with a slip right and flick move that worked well.
We couldn't set up and effect a high press for long periods but we did play a shift defence that looked to isolate individual players once the ball had gone wide. We did this effectively and won a high number of turnovers which gave us good platforms to attack. Our back line went to 1 on 1 marking allowing our old man sweeper to step and focus on late runners which ensured we were not opened up many times.
We worked our way back into the game by transitioning the ball quickly from side to side and this led to creating free channels moving forward. From one such move Luke Barrett attacked from wide left and won a short corner which Tim Sylvester dispatched in trademark style with a bottom right finish. Our other half back Tommy Barlow then crashed a ball in from the right hand side which Tim stopped, turned on and again smashed past the goalie for a 2-1 lead.
We were playing confidently at this stage only to concede a poor goal that relied on a number of fortuitous breaks and bounces of the ball. We came straight right back with our other forward David House muscling his way past his defender to get a deflection on a hit in and loop the ball over their goalie. 3-2 up and we looked to see the game out. We then suffered a blow as Harry Turner, our influential centre half was struck painfully on the foot and had to leave the pitch. We faced heavy pressure for the last 5 mins and unfortunately this resulted in one final attack which again Anchorians converted.
Very frustrating as that is twice this season that we should have won. Fair play to Anchs, they never gave up and you can see why they are challenging for the title. However only 1 point for them means Holcombe now take over as league leaders who we meet next Saturday.....
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