Match Report

We came into this game on the back of a heavy defeat the week previously albeit with 10 men and carrying injuries. The manager delved into the transfer market during the week leading up to this game and O’Brien, Lamoon and Middleton all made their debuts today.

Coney’s start to the season has been as shaky as ours so both teams had previously showed a lack of form. As the game unfolded it was clear their main threat was represented by their two pacy forwards, however Benningfield and Beesley gradually got to grips with them. As you will no doubt notice from the scoreline it was almost impossible to remember all the goals and the build up to them. However the first two do stand out, O’Brien’s first was a belter, cutting inside and unleashing a vicious drive with his right foot that left the keeper with no chance from a good 25 yards out. Wray then added to the total jinking past his defender just inside the box and scoring with a crisp right footed shot. Wade rounded the keeper after a defensive error and scored from an acute angle to make it three. In between we’d been caught napping and they had managed to equalise but we came in 3-1 up.

Although leading at half time we’d been caught offside on too many occasions in the 1st half and sometimes rather carelessly. With our minds tuned into this and Coney pushing their backline a little too far up the pitch we quickly added to our total, Dan Head notched twice in one on one situations with the keeper, O’Brien went through twice more to get a debut hat-trick and Wray rediscovered his goal scoring touch by also notching a hat-trick. Coney replied in the closing stages with a consolation effort but by then it was obviously all over.

You’ll have to forgive me if I haven’t done some of the goals justice but like I said there were too many to recall, a good problem to have for a manager doing a report! Everybody made a telling contribution today, I’m sure Coney were not at their best and they are bound to give us a closer game next Sunday in the return fixture but our performance was well above average. Solid enough at the back and merciless in front of goal, with both departments aided by tireless performances from the midfield. The debutants all put in a good shift and who can argue with a hat-trick from O’Brien? They have brought competition to the squad and a freshness so let’s hope we can build on it now. We had 15 players today and bear in mind we had injuries to Clark, Miller and Freeman-Roach plus Graham and Nethercot were unavailable. This all bodes well for the future.

Hopefully the team progresses now and we’ll establish a foothold in this division, one performance like this means nothing in the overall picture of things and we cannot allow complacency to creep in, however basking in a bit of glory for a short while will do our confidence no harm.

Well played boys.