Old Challoners V Phoenix Old Boys
Saturday 14 January
Team: Van Nistlegoalie; Beill, Lancaster, Foster, Lord; Maker, Bevins P (Dann, 60), Daw, Rae; Fitch, Thomas
Score: 2:1
Scorers: og, Rae
Back on familiar ground after a brief re-visit to Hervines Park OC's were confident of another home victory. Phoenix Old Boys were the opposition, always an unknown quantity and to be fair to them a more competitive side made the short trip from the Ghetto to Fortress Eppo than when we played the reverse fixture earlier in the season.
OC's started well and took the game to Phoenix some excellent passing saw us making in roads down both flanks but alas not creating any clear cut goal scoring opportunities. With the defense looking solid confidence in attack grew and we eventually took the lead when Fitchy got clear on the right hand side and crossed toward the unmarked Thomas, the ball failed to reach him however as the retreating defender flung himself at the ball and scored a tremendous diving header giving the Phoenix keeper no hope, 1-0. The referee then started to intervene more and more and on several occasions halted both Fitchy and Tom when through on goal to bring the play back for dubious offside decisions. As half-time approached our concentration momentarily deserted us as Maker had to clear a free header off the line. From the resulting corner failure to clear our lines lead to Phoenix's equaliser a particularly soft goal to concede. The whistle blew immediately for half time and we went in disappointed at 1-1.
The second half took the same pattern as the first with us playing the football and looking the more dangerous. Phoenix were a little one dimensional in attack choosing to launch highballs up to their centre forward which were easily dealt with by Lordy and Foz. We continued to work ourselves into good crossing positions but our final ball was continually woeful and we failed to punish Phoenix. That was until Ali Rae produced a moment of quality. Initially Fitch was put through, by yet another defence splitting pass from the left back area, and forced the keeper to make an unorthodox save with his legs. From the resulting corner the ball was headed out to Ali 25yds from goal where he hit a sweet half volley that was in the back of the net before the Keeper could move 2-1. The last 20 minutes saw us typically under unnecessary pressure as we had failed to put the game out of the opposition's reach. We were indebted to Ruud as he pulled off a tremendous save to keep us ahead. The match finished with us defending a series of unnecessary free kicks but we held out until the final whistle.
Man-Of-The-Match:
No individual really stood out this week but a solid performance from the back four went a long way toward securing the points so each can take a quarter of this weeks award.
THE LANCASTER VERDICT:
A workmanlike performance ensured the 3 points were ours but again an inability to create goal-scoring opportunities nearly cost us. We will have to improve next Saturday against Meadonians one of the better sides in our league even if they do have that clown on the left who spends more time rolling around on the ground than he does on his feet!
