Well it was another must win game for the 5’s, we all turned out to the nice elevated pitch in Croydon, with a particularly tropical cross win, giving the feeling of a sweltering –200000000 degrees. When everyone arrived the conversation turned to what colour we would be playing in, most had assumed as we were playing an AWAY game we would be playing in our white kit, however our captain was under the impression that, as the oppo’s were in Blue we would play in Maroon, he was the ONLY person to think this so he was made to scrounged and wear a white T shirt.
That said we got down to business, with good strong pressure from the push off, we started moving the ball well and found nice gaps in the Crows defence, both Carlos and Darron missing a few opening salvos at the goal, we were in a dominant position. We spent a good 20 minutes in the opponents half with several shots being attempted on the revers stick, by both our centre forwards, when finally Darron managed to get a shot on target using his STRONG side and the ball slid past the goalie, 0 – 1 to Epsom.
Straight after push off the pressure was resumed and ANOTHER Darron goal was scored, this time scored with his preferred reverse side of the stick, which he some how managed to slap into the bottom right of the goal through about 3 defenders legs! 0 – 2 to Epsom. the half time whistle came with the opponents having made very few breaks, those that they did make were swiftly cut off by another solid defensive performance!
The team talk was a usual affair, keep up the good work, pass it more and USE THE WINGS. so we set off, to apply some more of the constant pressure from the first half, but for some reason we fell apart, we started to use the left wing for every attack and kept running in to one of their strong midfielders, who the promptly returned the ball towards our D with an areal ball, or a precision hit. but as we often to we refused to give up and carried on trying to force the ball down the left, when the right had side of the pitch was completely open with one defender to beat. We did however break several times into the opponents D, but all ended in the ball being smashed blindly towards the goal and missing or on the rare occasion it was on target the oppo’s goalie provided some good saves.
All in all the second half performance left a lot to be desired, Matt B deservedly got MoM for some great interceptions and defensive work, and I got TFC for wearing a Beany (as it was Freezing) and not missing the goal enough!
To beat Reigate we need to replicate our first half performance throughout the game, as a win will see us jump i believe 2 places to 4th!