Pre-Season Friendly
Edge Hill, Stapenhill
Tuesday, 17th July 2018, 7.45pm
All Square With The Swans
As Gresley manager Gary Norton reported in his pre-match news, he made several changes to the side which thumped Thringstone on Saturday.
Stapenhill provided a sterner test than the game provided at the weekend, but it was Gresley who made most of the running and if their finishing had been as good as their approach play they could have been a couple of goals to the good at the halftime break.
After a cagey first fifteen minutes of so Gresley began to make some inroads through the Stapenhill defence with Martin Smyth bringing out a decent save from Chris Hodge as he turned and fired a shot from the edge of the area. Minutes later a good ball into the area was narrowly headed over by Kieran O’Connell.
Against the run of play, Stapenhill took the lead. A corner was swung into Gresley’s area by Paul Furniss. The unfortunate Connor Byrne looked to have had the ball in his grasp, but he lost control of it and Tom Duddy was on hand to stab the ball home.
Gresley pressed forward looking for an equaliser forcing numerous corners but the closest they got to drawing level was a free kick from Smyth which sailed over the bar on the stroke of half time.
Gresley made several changes for the second half and they seemed to give them the edge.
Just after the hour mark a cross from Zach Evans was met by Dominic Allen but his effort flew over the bar.
The equaliser came on 70 minutes. A through ball was blocked near the edge of Stapenhill’s area but Evans was quickly onto the rebound slotting it into the empty net.
Evans went close again two minutes later when he latched onto Ryan King’s cross, but his shot was well blocked on the line.
It was then the turn of King to go close when, after beating a defender, he tried a lob the keeper, but the ball dropped just over the bar.
Evans was causing problems for the home defence and ran forward onto a pass but his shot heading for the bottom corner appeared to have been well saved by substitute keeper Ryan Larkin but amazingly the referee gave Stapenhill a goal kick!
Stapenhill almost grabbed a late winner when a cheeky lob by Josh Warren bounced off the bar. In the end the result was about right between a hard working and well drilled home side and a Gresley side containing many of the reserve and youth squads who gave Norton food for thought.
