A few late pull outs + addition of DanM saw us with 13 on the team sheet inc a few newbies
As we drove past the ground in Skurno’s people carrier someone commentated how much time we had until kick off, we then proceded to circle the pitch looking for parking before ending up in a multi story and cabbing it just in time for kick off.
Starting line up 4:3:3: with Danny (GK), Skurno-DanM-DanH-Hao, Ed-Michael-Jeff, Patrick-Femi-Chi, the aim being to drop to 4:5:1 without the ball.
We opened brightly winning lots of balls in the middle of the park and using the flanks well to attack, we were winning lots of throw-ins, corners and free kicks in dangerous areas however in the box we lacked the final touch. The opposition passed the ball around well when the had it, and attacked with long throw-ins, however they had little up front. Against the run of play DanM got caught with the ball and a sprightly Jbull player nipped in and opened the scoring.
2 subs after 20 mins; Hao-David, Femi-Tutu with Chi dropping into midfield and Michael up front. Some fresh legs game us some momentum and Michael latched onto a loose ball in the box only to be bizarley ruled off side given one of their players was on the goal line. Tutu later broke forward and circled the keeper only to be flagged offside. We started to lose our shape again as players strugged to drop back in the heat/humidity and half time beconed.
A change of formation to 4:2:2: with Chi leaving, Femi into midfield and Hao on for Skurno.
We started the second half as we finished the first looking legathargic and failling to maintain out shape, Jeff and Michael were working tirelessly in midfield however with few options we were resorting to long balls or going back to the defence. Patrick & Ed were still winning throw-ins and free kicks down the flanks and Femi got onto the end of a free kick only to see it glance over the bar, Tutu also had a 1-on-1 with the keeper only to see it saved. Jbulls on a one man break had to evade Skurno & Hao, Skurno cleared but Hao got caught with the ball and their player pounced to make it 2-nil.
With the clock ticking we rotated some players to use up our rolling sub allocation however we never looked like scoring and Ed was resoted to shooting from miles out. Jbulls continuted to waste time although some of our players must have thought we were winning as they also wasted time taking ages on throw-ins and kicking the ball miles out. The game stopped a lot as Jbulls got their elbows out and our players reacted leaving the linesman to keep interupting the match to notify the ref.
A disappointing result to start the 2011/12 season, with LTF & FC Show da Bola out we have a real chance of winning the league this year. As we never get to play all the games in the A-League all is not lost as it’s more about not losing points to title contenders and I don’t see Jbulls getting far in the league.
Will try for more weeknight games to avoid clashes however sometimes cannot be avoided, and the next match likely to be Sun Oct 2nd (Sun Spartans playing 9:30am),Wed Oct 5th is a public holiday so prob a match then. A League end of season dinner is Oct 8th – all are welcome and it’s a good cheap p*ss up.
Soho don’t have a match until Sat 1st(7:30pm) so a bit of a break – chance for people to get to training……hint hint!
Everyone split after the match, so my MOTM is a toss up between Michael & Jeff with Michael just edging it.
MUTD is split 50:50 with DanM & Hao for their Hoalers at the back.
Training every Wed 9pm King’s Park Sports Ground.
http://g.co/maps/gxq9
