What a difference a week makes

COWHC 3s 1-3 Reigate Priory Pilgrims

08th February 2013

After one of our best performances for a long time last week, with unfortunately the wrong result at the end, it was back to earth with a bump against Reigate.

We had a bare eleven available, which was apparently the case for all of the men's sides this week, but at least we had an umpire, meaning we could use all available players.  We started with a slightly experimental line-up, with AJ dropping in to left back and Alex playing at right half.  I was playing in the centre of defence with John as Speddo wasn't around.  The rest of the team filled in pretty much as usual, yet for some reason the fluency of last week wasn't there.

Maybe it was the system, maybe the conditions didn't help, maybe it was down to some rather over zealous umpiring at one end, with Andrew being particularly harshly penalised.  Whatever it was, we couldn't seem to string more than two passes together and frustration came into our play.  Credit to Reigate in that they did hassle us well, and didn't allow us to settle particularly, but we were hindering ourselves more than anything.

That said, we did actually manage to take the lead midway through the half.  In keeping with the way we were playing, the goal was't a thing of beauty, with Angus converting at the far post after the ball somehow found its way to him.

Our lead didn't last long though unfortunately.  And again it wasn't the best of goals.  A Reigate move was broken up and the ball cleared out towards the 25.  Unfortunately it went straight to an opposition player, who controlled and played a straight ball back into the D.  It was pretty harmless, although we should have given Paul a shout to leave it.  Sadly he got enough of a touch on it on its way through and the goal was given.

We did manage a couple of shots ourselves after this, and really should have re-taken the lead following either one from Andrew or one from me, both of which the Reigate keeper stopped, although how much he knew about either I'm not sure.

It was a rather disheartened bunch therefore that went into the half time team talk.  Following some motivational words from Radders we lined up for the second half.  And were hit by an immense hail storm, in which I swear the hailstones were actually coming horizontally across the pitch!  Fortunately, given the wind, it blew over pretty quickly, but not before everyone was given a good drenching.

Unfortunately, we still couldn't get any fluency in our play.  We weren't helped by Radders getting a stick to the chest, followed not long afterwards by Mike pulling his calf.  So from 11 players we were down to 9 and a half.  As a result, Reigate began to impose themselves on the game more, and it wasn't a surprise that they eventually took the lead.

One of their forwards managed to get free on towards the left corner of the D and somehow got his shot between Paul and the near post.

We probably threw caution to the wind a bit after that in an effort to get back on level terms.  Sadly that didn't work, and we got caught out again on the break.  The same player who scored the second goal was played through the middle and, although I got to him as he shot, my block only succeeded in lifting the ball into the air and past Paul's outstretched hand.

So a disappointing performance, a very disappointing result, and a post-Christmas slump in results that will hopefully pick up next week (maybe because I'm unavailable!)

POM went to me.