Gresley Rovers vs The Dart
Gresley Rovers 4 - 1 The Dart
Scorers: Morton 2, Hollis 2
Team: Ian Parker, Joe Tomlin, Rich Foster, Dave Hatfield (c), Danny Gee, Josh Gregory, Luke Taylor, Sam Worth, Paul Morton, Mark Shorthouse, Paul Hollis Subs: Stu Haywood, Chris Smith, Jack Moylan, Andy Lyons, Matt Grice.
We started our season with the chance to play up at "the Moat", so thanks to everyone involved with the club for allowing this. Also to Matt Dingle and Brian Slater for giving us a great surface to play on.
This season our squad has a couple of "new faces" which I feel have become great assets to us already, as in pre-season friendlies, we've looked a lot more organised on the pitch. For this Dave Hatfield should take most of the
credit, and thus my choice to make him our skipper.
We spoke before the game about getting the ball down and playing to feet (something that we do a lot of in (training) and to utilise the width of the pitch. As always, I spoke about keeping our discipline and not getting involved in arguing with the ref (something that I feel is very important) because we represent our great club.
The game started, and from the off, we looked sharp with some neat passing carving open our opponents. We looked eager and some of our link play was outstanding, and being honest, we pretty much controlled things. If anything
we were just a little wasteful in front of goal, because we squandered a lot of chances, although their keeper made some fine saves.
Shorthouse hit the bar, from a fine effort, and Gee was unlucky when he hit a sweet shot from some way out going just over the bar. However, Morton opened the scoring with 35 minutes gone, which eased the nerves a little. Shorthouse was unlucky not to add another when his goal was ruled off side (even though I'm sure it came back off their keeper). We went into the interval with a 1-0 lead (but being honest we should of put the game out of reach).
Second half started and we'd spoke about keeping focussed, and having the belief that more chance would come. We needed to keep our concentration (something we sometimes let slip) and keep working as in the first half. Morton doubled our lead early on, which certainly helped ease the
nerves, and with 10 minutes gone we were forced to make our first substitution when Shorthouse suffered a dead leg so we replaced him with Smith.
The Dart then had a good spell with them pushing us, and had a goal ruled offside, but they certainly raised their game. We never let this bother us too much though, and were soon 3-0 up from a Hollis goal. Sometimes this can be
the time we "switch off" but today we kept pushing and Hollis added another when Smith chipped in and Hollis reacted getting there just before their keeper.
So 4-0 up and looking a lot more comfortable, we made our 2nd substitution (with 15 minutes left) bringing on Moylan for Taylor. Then with 10 to go Hollis picked up an ankle injury so was replaced by Lyons and as we rode out the half, were caught napping a little, and The Dart got a late consolation goal. However, I was a little disappointed with not keeping a clean sheet but it didn't take the shine off a great team performance.
Well today was a stark contrast from most of last season; we had the ability and belief to break down the opposition. We kept our shape and were patient when we were "on top" and this shows that we have matured in our tactical department. Our defence was very seldom given too many problems, and the partnership of Tomlin, Hatfield and Foster was as solid as a rock. Our midfielders controlled most of possession and up front we created loads of chances so a pleasing first game.
We need to take the same desires and beliefs (together with attitude and work rate) into our next games and hopefully get the results that today we deserved. I thought that Foster was "head and shoulders" the best player on the pitch today in a match where everyone played really well. We just need to continue in that vein and I'm sure this season will be much improved from last!!
Well done to all the squad.
Mom: Dave Hatfield (picked by Graham) - he lead by example today missed nothing and organised and talked like a "true skipper" well done Dave.
