Rain greeted the 45BC return to Duffys after many years away. A newish Terrigal team got stuck straight into us from the whistle and after 20 mins of pressure a cross sneaked through to the back post where they converted it. Read more
We had a lack lustre first 15 mins with a bit of ball watching and inaccurate passing and not tracking our players. This resulted in Umina scoring their first 2 goals. What certainly did not help our cause was having Neil and Graeme sustaining injuries within the first 5 minutes resulting in them being sidelined. Read more
The 45A2’s kicked off their campaign by travelling to a very soggy James Browne oval to face SEU in our round 1 fixture. Whilst our opponents were new to the comp this season, it became rapidly apparent that this was a team made up of former 35A grade and Premier League players, meaning we were likely in for a tough game. That certainly proved to be the case once the match got underway, although we were able to hold fast for the opening 10 minutes before Southern opened the scoring, with a well worked goal, with them adding a second five minutes later.
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A solid performance to open our season against last years league winners.
We conceded a scrappy goal early on but managed to equalise almost immediately and although being very dominant in terms of possession and chances, went to half time with just a 2-1 lead. Read more
This week the 45DC came up against Killarney. We had decided to park the bus until we saw what we were up against after we got demolished last year, but the team interpreted this as ‘maintain a coherent midfield’, so turned out to be a really good idea. Read more
The 45C2’s finally got to play their second game of the season away to Ourimbah. With a full squad + 1 available, we hoped to build on our first game win with another 3 points this time around, whilst also being wary that Ourimbah have been a bit of a bogey team for us in previous seasons.
Another very solid start saw us virtually dominate possession of the ball, allowing us to press Ourimbah into their own defensive third but somehow our final pass or decision making when opportunities occurred failed us and we weren’t able to take the lead.
As is often the way in football, all that dominance counted for nought when Ourimbah managed to counter attack through the middle and send a mishit shot into the back of our net very much against the run of play. Thankfully it didn’t take long for parity to be restored when James pounced on a good through ball to slot home the equaliser within five minutes of conceding.
We continued to create chances culminating with Craig having a perfectly good goal disallowed for offside, which was shortly followed by Ourimbah finding a way through the middle of our defence again putting their striker through one on one with Mark in goal, who was forced to handle the shot outside the area to pick himself up a yellow card but at least it allowed us to stay level at half time.
With the half time talk focusing on keeping our play simple and our retaining our shape, we started the second half on top again and really pressed Ourimbah back into their defensive third again. With Ourimbah defending resolutely, it looked like we might be in for a frustrating afternoon until Yatesy went on a mazy run before being felled in their area to earn us a spot kick, which Stacks duly despatched to put us in front.
We probably made the remainder of the game harder for ourselves than we should have done but couldn’t kill the game off despite creating numerous chances. Ourimbah were clearly not going to die wondering and there was a period in the final ten minutes where it got a little fractious but we were able to see the game out and take all 3 points to continue our winning start to the season.
Man of the Match was Craig, who put in a huge shift and seemed to be just about everywhere on the park at times.
The Scrotum Medal went to Mark for his ‘hand of god’ moment but not a bad card to take for the team on reflection.
We also got to meet Angry Yatesy for the first time (think the Hulk without green body paint, which was quite entertaining. Also, a big shout out to Smiffy, who generously offered to sacrifice his place with us to back up for the 35CS boys.
Next up WOY at Pluim on Tuesday night, before the big BUFC derby match on Saturday.”
Final Score: Ourimbah 1-2 45C2
Goal scorer: James Banovich, Phil Stackhouse
Player’s player: Craig Northey
Match started at a “fast” pace (relatively speaking for 45s of course) making us think we may have a tough game ahead of us but after less than 5 mins our tall Scottish striker, following a lot of pin-balling in front of their goals, put one away.
We had many more chances but were off target with them though finally that changed with that Scottish man putting one away again making it 2-0 going into the sheds (or trees) at half time. Team talk basically was “don’t change a thing”. Gosford made some fast runs from time to time throughout the match but never really threatened our goals with hardly a shot seen let alone one on target. Our boys passing game and strong defence was the key to winning the match. Welcome to Pete Smith who has finally joined us for the season.
He certainly added another dimension to our robust defence. We remain undefeated giving us confidence for a good season.
Final Score: O45DS 2-0 Gosford
Goal scorer: Mick McMahon (2)
Player’s player: Michael Holmes
For our first mid-week game at Pluim the 45DC had 15 at kickoff on the main Pluim field and we were playing a fast, fit East Gosford 2 side who gave us plenty to think about, and some real battles.
We did well for the first hour with few chances either way. But then disaster struck as the ball was poached from a defender and stroked past Ben for the first goal.
We pushed up to correct the deficit, and could have had a penalty, but exposed at the back and tiring we shipped 2 more for a frustrating 3-0 scoreline, which hadn’t reflected the match.
Great evenings football on a lovely pitch, with Ben making some good saves, and Dave Watkiss MOM.
Final Score: 45DC 0-3 East Gosford
Goals: Unfortunately not.
An evenly contested game against Kincumber revealed a better first half by them but the second half was ours. Our passing in the first half saw us lose possession on many occasions and our attack was limited due to poor finishing and any good opportunities up front not capitalised on. Read more
The 45C2’s were finally able to play their first game in their Round 5 fixture vs UMI at McEvoy Oval, a ground that none of us knew even existed prior to this match. With such a disrupted pre-season, we weren’t really sure what to expect from ourselves but at least we didn’t have players introducing themselves to each other before kick off like in some previous seasons! Read more