The Entrance vs Barnstoneworth B North Report

Round 13 saw us playing our away game versus The Entrance at Pat Morley Oval, a venue which was expected to have held up well despite the rain that fell during the week leading up to the game.

With our numbers continuing to be depleted and unable to call upon any backups this time around, we found ourselves running with just a couple of subs on the bench, which was always likely to make life more difficult that would have been liked.

Having found our opponents tough competitors in round 6 despite them being bottom of the league at the time, we knew that we would be in for another hard game (not that there have been any easy ones so far this season!). A tight contest saw few clear opportunities for either side, although we were somewhat unlucky to see a couple of reasonable chances go begging, including having one attempt cleared off the line, resulting in the game being deadlocked at the break.

Our half time talk largely concentrated on trying to ensure that we were matching our opponents’ level of intensity, particularly in the midfield, as we were often second best in that area. Despite this, The Entrance could sense blood in the water and came at us even harder after the restart and it was no real surprise when we conceded a sloppy goal, due to our not tracking their runners. As disappointing as it was to go behind, it did seem to something of stir a response and within 5 minutes we were back on level terms after Lee curled in a vicious in-swinging corner that the ENT goalkeeper misjudged allowing it to drop in at the back post. This seemed to settle our ship and allowed us to wrestle control of the game back from our opponents, so it was very disappointing when some indecision at the back resulted in the giving away of a poor penalty with 5 minutes to go, which our opponents duly converted, despite Geoff getting a touch on the strike.

Given our level of performance for most of the game, we were never really likely to produce a stirring response and so it proved with us tasting defeat for only the second time this season when the final whistle sounded. No excuses, our performance simply wasn’t good enough to warrant getting anything from the game and The Entrance clearly wanted it more but it is obvious that we are sorely missing our absent players and their return cannot come soon enough. Thanks to other results going in our favour, we still have a 6 point lead at the top of the table but we need to rapidly rediscover our mojo, or run the risk of that advantage being whittled away before we know it.

The man of the match award went to Frank for his valiant efforts up front, which on another day might have at least earn us a valuable point but for some ordinary defending on our part. The whole team shared the Scrotum medal this week, as each and every one of us made an error at some point during the game, which just about summed the day up!

Final Score: The Entrance 2 – 1 Barnstoneworth