UniBond League Division One
The Moat Ground, Church Gresley
Tuesday, 21st March 2006, 7.45pm
Nailers nailed at the Moat Ground
When you play a local derby the form book, league position and everything else goes out of the window however, this match went to form - eventually.
Local Derbyshire rivals Belper Town travelled to the Moat Ground seeking to do the double over Gresley Rovers after they had nicked all three points at Christ Church Meadow just over a month ago.
Gresley thought they'd got off to the perfect start after just 8 minutes when Andy Carney just parried Aaron O'Connor's terrific shot into the path of Paul Edwards who then bundled the ball into the net only to see the ref's assistant with his flag in the air.
Although the home side were not yet firing on all cylinders they went close again on 16 minutes when O'Connor sent over a superb low cross that was inches ahead of Tom Betteridge who was sprinting into the box.
Belper hit back almost immediately and a shot on target from Luke Chambers was blocked away for a corner. The Nailers took the lead from the flag kick when the ball was floated into the area from the right and a header from Jon Hobson beat the unsighted Gresley keeper Tommy Whittle.
The visitor's were having most of the play but it was Gresley who then threatened when Mickey Lyons hit a shot that ended up well wide on 25 minutes.
O'Connor was supplying some fabulous crosses one of which was met by Edwards but he put his shot well over the bar.
On 33 minutes Gresley had a decent shout for a penalty when Lyons was tripped in the box but referee Mr Coote waved away the appeals.
After a shaky half hour Gresley slowly began to take control of the game and it was O'Connor, proving to be a thorn in the Nailers defence, who cracked in another vicious shot that Carney did well to parry.
Gresley needed to get back on terms before the break to reward them for all their pressure and it came with just two minutes to go to half time from a set piece. Awarded a free kick on the right touch line a couple of yards or so from the corner flag Nicky Carter swung in an inviting ball that home defender Chris Brindley despatched into the net with a fine header.
The Moatmen came out for the second half pushing Belper back from the whistle and the pressure told when O'Connor scored his 31st goal of the season on 51 minutes. He picked Brindley's pass deep on the left of Belper's box before beating his marker and firing an unstoppable low shot across Carney and into the far corner of the net.
The goal put Gresley firmly in control for the rest of the game and Belper were limited to pumping the high long ball up and into the Gresley box hoping to pick up on anything but to no avail.
Edwards put the game out of The Nailers reach on 62 minutes with a goal almost the carbon copy of O'Connor's earlier effort. Edwards chested down a long pass from Matt Millns before firing across Carney and into the far corner.
On 70 minutes David Holmes had a chance to add to Gresley's tally when he picked up Edwards flicked on header but his shot lacked any pace and ended up in the keepers arms.
Belper went close just minutes later when a free kick from Hudson found former Moatman Paul Tomlinson but Allan Davies was on the spot to clear the header off the line.
The visitors had one more meaningful effort on 88 minutes and almost reduced the deficit when Hudson fired a screamer that flashed by the wrong side of a post.
Manager's View
"I thought we were awful for the first twenty five, thirty minutes or so. If that had been videoed I would have had the lads watch the whole ninety minutes on Thursday to find out how we could suddenly go from how we were performing for the first half hour to how we did in the last fifteen minutes of the first half.
"I think when we got in front in the second half and particularly with the third I felt we controlled the game but on reflection when we weren't playing particularly well in the first thirty minutes they scored off a corner. It was very dissappointing; Matt Millns has held his hands up he let his guy get off him. I've been pulling my hair out about those sorts of things; we've got to cut out those silly errors from set plays and concentrate. The work we did at Kidsgrove and defended superbly well for ninety minutes because they load the box every opportunity they get so it's so frustrating to concede a goal from set play but we kept going, dug it out and got three points.
"It's nice to see Aaron (O'Connor) and Paul Edwards on the score sheet and it was nice to see our own set play get us back in the game.
"You've got to give Belper some credit. They've just come off the back of an unbeaten run that handed them the Team of the Month. They've got some good players and work hard. Most teams do on this league. If I have a criticism of ourselves, and if you look at Woodley Sports last week and how they worked very, very hard that is the main difference in terms of us getting some better results, is our work rate. Tonight we've been sloppy in the first period of the game not being able to get our game going but once we tried to get the ball down and tried to bring wide players into it and bring the full backs in we did look a much better side. There are going to be some far tougher tests this season but credit to Belper Ernie's got them bang at it, they've got a pattern of play and they stick to it and it's very effective. They ground one out against us but we were the better side at Belper and I think Ernie would concede that but ultimately it's about results and not about how well you play at this stage of the season.
"Whether we've played well or not tonight the first and most important thing is the result and if you've played half decent that's a nice consolation as well.
"Chris Brindley has come back in tonight and except for one slip in the second half has done well and I was quite pleased with that. Nicky Carter deputised ably for Gary White at Kidsgrove and has done an equally good job tonight so at long last we've got some good competition in that left back position. It was pleasing not to use Gary, although he was on the bench and had done well in the warm up, in case he got a bang or went over on his ankle it will make him even stronger for Saturday."
