Gresley Rovers vs The Dart
Gresley RoversYouth 3 - 5 The Dart
Scorers: Hollis, Smith, Foster
Team: Ian Parker(c), Jack Moylan, Alex Peplow, Kyle Jones, Carl Wymark, Danny Gee, Joe Tomlin, Chris Smith, Matt Grice, Todd Foster, Paul Hollis
Subs: Dean Acton, Luke Taylor, Paul Morton, Sam Worth
We were at home against The Dart, who are well placed in the league, and are a decent team. Martin and myself were looking for a response from last week's poor display, and we'd opted to revert back to 4-4-2.
We'd decided to play Ian in goal for a number of reasons (one being the fact that Stu Haywood was suffering from a heavy cold).Before the game we had a chat about last week and that we needed more effort and 11 workers.
So as the game started we looked a little "off it" in the first few minutes, but soon settled into things and once we'd got our passing going we started to give the opposition a few problems. Through some quick neat passing we were creating havoc for their defenders and within 10 minutes we were one up with a quality ball to Hollis who finished with a cool strike.
Our back four were holding a good line and catching their strikers off side numerous times. With 25 minutes gone we went two up when Smith dribbled past their defenders to beat the keeper at the near post from an acute angle.
This was just the response we were looking for from the lads as we continued to have the majority of play. We could of (and should of added more) but for some wayward finishing when a little composure was all that was needed in front of goal.
However, as we'd mentioned before the game, The Dart have goal scoring players throughout their side, and this they proved when twice they broke forward in numbers to equalise. With 7 minutes until half time, Parker made a brave challenge (at the cost of a broken ankle) so we brought on Acton in goal and I asked that we protect him until half time to let him settle in. With the whistle looming, Acton caught the ball only to be clattered by their attacker and the ref allowed the goal to stand.
So we started the second half trailing and we still played to our strengths and had slightly more of the play. We search for an equaliser and this came via foster so it was "game on". We swapped Smith for Morton and soon after
Tomlin for Taylor and still looked at ease with things.
However, The Dart twice caught us on the break and took away the points, so for all our efforts we came away with nothing!!
So to sum things up, yes again we lost, but after last week we played much better and at times played high tempo football. We still show that at times we're a little naive though which is a little disappointing because we've had a year (and although progress has been good) we still sometimes "switch off". It has proved for everyone involved how difficult the move to the higher league has proved, but I feel that at times, as shown today, if we raise the tempo teams cannot match us and it runs them wragged it's that we don't do this for long enough periods. However, with our form it's shows true character from ALL OF YOU that each week your just as keen as you were at the beginning of the season. I think today you can be proud of the performance and I think that (although Dean did well in goal) we'll never know what impact on the result Ian's injury had?? Thanks for Dean though because it takes character for an out field player to go in goal.
Mom: Paul Hollis, his work rate has never been in question but today he was back to his best scoring and causing havoc for their defenders well done Paul.
