1st Team Results
1st Team 2 - 2 Parkview
Venue: Away
Referee:
A hard fought draw today against a very fit, strong and fast side.
Parkview hade only lost one game this season in the league and after today I could see why.
With three new faces in the squad today and a couple of lads drafted in to help us from within the club - we were always going to have periods during the game where we lost our rhythm.
That said we started steady and for the first 10 minutes controlled the pace of the game without really troubling Parkview's defence. Then they started finding space on the flanks and started involving their deep lying play maker and we endured a tough period of sustained pressure. To say that this team was fast/strong was an understatement.......Coupled with playing on 3g, it made it all the more difficult to contain them.
They took the lead through some misfortune ironically. A speculative short from 25 yrds out, took a deflection of one of our defenders and looped up into the opposite corner to which our keeper had the shot covered. They were lucky but on the pattern of play - it was coming. We tried to play and had some sporadic breaks but all of which came to nothing. Then after about 35 minutes one of their strikers received the ball to feet, turned and accelerated away from his marker. He ran through on goal and tucked the ball home from an angle.
We weathered the storm and had a break on goal only for Mike Ramsay to screw the ball wide from a narrow angle.
Half time came and we regrouped slightly. We made a couple of subs and moved some players around. Marked a little further up the pitch and we started playing. We stretched them on a number of occasions with some decent breaks. Parkview during our increasing grip on the game were always dangerous on the break and brought 5 good saves at various times from Jason Buutjlens. Our first goal came from an attack which resulted in Ollie being pulled down outside the area. From the resulting direct free kick Ollie whipped the goal in the right hand corner of the gaol from out left without the keeper making a move - Game on.
We pushed and created more openings and counter attacks but failed to test their keeper. The equaliser came from another break from midfield which saw Ollie make an angled run towards Parkview's area. Mike Ramsay made a great decoy run pulling two defenders away from goal thus providing Ollie with a little more space. Ollie was closed down but cut back inside and dispatched a low hard drive into the bottom left hand corner. It was a great finish from just a half chance.
We sensed the 3 points and went for the winner. A number of attacks broke down with the final ball being cut out or going astray. The game started opening up and Parkview counter attacked us a few more times. We kept an extra player back to protect the defence but still had some promising attacks.
But the game was also about some great defensive blocks, tackles and saves namely from Nick Lewis, Jason Buutjlens, Michael Proctor and Sam Olanikepun - on his debut.
We saw the game out and was pleased with the draw considering the pressure we endured in that opening 45 minutes!!!
We need to keep up this level of performance now for the rest of the season as we chase the leading pack down.
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