Mini Match Report
Sat 1st May
Saints Vintage 3-4 Berkeley Vale Bayside
A really enjoyable game against the hot favourites to take down the A Comp.
Overall a good team performance where we continued to keep fighting till the very end.
Mostly great passing and talking although Bayside made us pay for our few mistakes. Still some improvement needed on clearing the ball safely from the backs and taking the easier option sometimes out wide. James hardly saw the ball on the right wing as we were mostly going through the middle or down the left - Lets work on changing that for this weeks game
Chris O put away 2 nice goals and Dash is on the scoreboard too after a sweet finish.
4 points from 4 games isnt all bad..on paper we have easier teams to play for our final 3 rounds before the split.
This week Jazzy and Noellie are away so I will need to know ASAP if you can or cant play this Saturday
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Sat 24th April
Saints Vintage 2-2 Wyoming Brotherhood
Saints opponents this week were last years C grade Champions. Wyoming Brotherhood. We lined up with a 4-2-3-1 formation
Karl (GK)
Skip (RB) Rosie (Sweeper) Stevie B (Stopper) Noellie (LB
Toddy (CM) Astro (CM)
Dash (RM) Zac (CM) Chris O (LM)
Korie (Striker)
Raffa had tried his best to hide his ear piercing from the ref but to no avail..this ref has eyes in the back of his head so Raffa was sidelined to remove the illegal jewellery.
We had discussed our game plan, keep the ball, simple passes, lots of calling, use our 2 fast wingers and try to score more than the opposition...always a good plan.
The game started and we were indeed keeping the ball, completing a lot of simple passes and totally dominating. Korie was holding up the ball upfront and making some great lay-offs. Stevie B was again making some great runs through midfield, combining well with Zac, Toddy and Raffa. Our defence was looking solid and Karl had little to do. Despite our possession we were finding it hard to really get through their defence although Korie did have a couple of chances, one of which hit the woodwork?
James arrived midway through the first half and replaced Korie upfront. Not long after it looked odds on that James would score after a great through ball and run ended with a screaming toe-poke but their keeper made an excellent save.
We werent really using our wide players as much as I wanted, but late in the first half Dash made a run on the right and hearing the LOUD call from Astro, Dash cut the ball back perfectly for Astro to thump the ball into the top of the net to give us a well deserved 1-0 lead. A great example of us getting the ball wide, a loud call and well executed pass/finish. This is what we really needed to do more.
The first half ended at 1-0 although it should of been more considering our possession.
The second half saw Wyoming controlling much of the ball..they were passing well, combining with lots of 1-2's and putting our defence under a lot of pressure. Karl was now kept very busy in goals, making some great saves, especially from one of their attacks where he made 3 fully stretched saves in a row. Saints were barely hanging on, our midfield was not getting back, our defence was getting run ragged, we lost all our shape and it was only a matter of time before Wyoming finally equalised. 1-1.
Wyoming kept up the pressure to take the lead 2-1 with only a few minutes to go.
Noellie almost scored with a great cross/shot which scraped the bar and should have been finished off, Korie was close to scoring a couple of tiimes. Chris O made a great run on the left, beating a couple of players and we had 3 players on the edge of the box waiting for the ball...but no one was calling for it,
With time running out, the ball went wide right for Dash who beat his marker and took the ball to the right hand side of the box. Toddy had also made a great run into space on the edge of the box and SCREAMED "TOP OF THE BOX". Dash duly obliged with a perfectly weighted pass to the top of the box and Toddy slammed the ball with the outside of his foot into the bottom left corner.
What a great goal, and another example of getting it wide, hearing a LOUD call and completing a pass and shot.
Final whistle came soon after and Saints got the point..2-2 draw and probably a fair result in the end.
Our master plan of not finishing in the top 3 to avoid the A comp seems to be working!!
We will have a very tough game this week against the Berkeley Vale Bayside Boys.. We will need to concentrate on keeping our shape, especially in midfield.
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