Gresley Rovers vs Barton United
Gresley Rovers Youth 2 - 4 Barton Utd
Scorers: Matt Holmes, Paul Hollis
Team: Alex Smith, Jack Moylan, Alex Peplow, Kyle Jones, Joe Tomlin, Danny Gee, Josh Gregory, Matt Holmes, Chris Smith, Paul Hollis, Todd Foster
Subs: Paul Morton, Luke Taylor, Matt Grice
It was our last home game today and again were looking for our first win against last years league champions. Our plans were thrown out, when Tom Allan got a late call for the first team, so with only 45 minutes to kick off we was
without a keeper! With a phone call, Martin called up Alex Smith who was on the bus on his way from Burton (so it was touch or go whether he'd make kick off) but credit to him he made it a minute before time.
Preparations were further hampered by the fact that the allocated ref failed to show despite being contacted on Friday night. So I had no choice but to step up with my whistle (not ideal for both trying not to be biased and
running the lads).
Anyway to the game, our first half performance was possibly as bad as we've seen, because to me it appeared that quite a few were "going through the motions". As Martin said: "everything we did right last week we did wrong first half". The workrate at times was poor, we gave the ball away far too cheaply and when we did never really had the desire to win it back. We looked out of shape and at times certain players just never looked interested. We
went behind by four goals in the 1st half, and of these 3 were gifts to Barton by some woeful defending and poor effort from everyone.
So at half time my message was a little cutting (but honest) because the only thing that we ask of the team is to give 100% effort and I felt certain players were way off that today. I won't "name names" and feel that the ones
knew who they were!!
Second half started and the talk had it's affect, because we looked more like it, we battled and played good passing football. We were the better team now and Hollis got us a goal back, and was instrumental in Matt Holmes goal too. So with 20 minutes left we were 4-2 down but although hopeful couldn't find that vital 3rd goal which I feel would have gave us the belief to go on and at least get a draw. However after the 1st half we never deserved anything from the game so we got what we deserved NOTHING!
Today I don't quite know what went wrong first half, because I know we all have poor games but the real disappointment to me was the lack of effort from some. We gave up when at times if we hadn't then perhaps we may have got something from the game (but we'll never know). We CANNOT give any team a 4 goal lead before we start to play!! That's basic commonsense.
I feel a little let down today by a number of things the main one is the fact that I contact everyone on Friday and then they don't show up!! So credit to the lads who did play because your commitment has never been in doubt and special thanks to Alex Smith for standing in at such short notice. As proved today (as Tom ALLAN shows) that you can make the step up to ressies then 1st team but to do that you need to listen to Martin and me and just compose yourselves and push yourselves that extra bit!!
MOM: Luke Taylor started as sub today and came on after 20 minutes and settled into midfield with ease. Although only 16 Luke has great awareness and seldom gives the ball away and improves every week!!
Well done Luke your performances have been outstanding and MOM was much deserved.
