Avoca vs Barnstoneworth Over 35DS – Round 7 Match Report

Barnstoneworth’s newest(ish) team, the O35DS, took on the second Avoca team in a month for Round 7 at Eastern Oval.

With the squad missing some key players through injury and work commitments, we called upon the help of club legends Chris West, Mike Curran and Jake King to help us out. Our coach, Ade, decided we needed a few more men in midfield so he went with 4-5-1 formation but, we quickly found that this Avoca team simply had too much attacking quality (we found out during the match that they were fielding 3 or 4, recently retired, ex-premiere league players, and it showed). A couple of really well taken goals, a converted penalty (the dive for which would have made Klinsmann proud) and 2 massively offside goals later, we found ourselves 5-0 down.

Half-time and Ade decided to change to 4-4-f’n-2. Jake left us to go his own, rescheduled, game with the 35CS so Mike Curran put on the gloves for the second half. We played a lot better in the second half with everyone seeming more familiar with their positions and with Jack, who was Captain for the day, shouting encouragement to our team and being a general pain in the arse to theirs, we started to get some chances but Avoca soon turned on the style and we conceded another couple midway through the half. It was 7-0 at this point but our heads didn’t drop and so, with around 10 minutes to go, Gabby decided “Stuff this!!”, or probably something similar in Spanish, I suspect, and went on a barnstorming run down the left before slotting the ball expertly past their keeper to bring the score to 7-1.

After being advised by the ref that we 8 minutes of game-time left, the rallying cry went out that “we can get another 6!!” But alas, we ran out of steam, and ideas, and Avoca weathered the storm… or at least that’s what I’d like to think how it went.If we’d have concede 1 more goal, Barnstoneworth convention dictates we would have been well within our right to go home and trash our living rooms.

A huge thanks again to Chris, Mike and Jake!

Final score: Avoca  7-1  35DS

Goal scorer: Gabriel Heredia
Player’s player: Jack Davison