B GRADE MATCH REPORT

Lane Cove West (Over35) 0 - 0 Hornsby Heights (Over 35)

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Second clean sheet for Lane Cove as Siberian husky spotted nearby!!!!

I will have to defer to Mark for the last time that we had 2 consecutive clean sheets. Dave W cannot recall it happening before 
his hair was white.  

Winter finally arrived, although no rain, it threatened throughout the game and had the A’s worried of a potential down pour 
throughout their game.

Keeping warm was a priority for subs and spectators as the game kicked off with LCW down to the minimum numbers available. 
Fortunately Martin C ( again calling himself Matt ) and Bill Gallagher turned up soon after.  Bill having just landed at 7.30am 
from Scotland must have thought the plane had turned around mid flight as it was pretty cold and he may be the first LCW player 
to have technically played a game at 4am in his own mind!

For the first 20 minutes it looked like we would have a repeat of 4-0 defeat the previous meeting had ended with.  Some stout 
defence as LCW adjusted to yet another Back-4 line up managed to keep them at bay.  Slowly the tide turned as parity was reached 
with most of the play taking place in midfield.  Very few opportunities were made by either side.  

The game was quite physical as HH tried to assert some dominance by some strongarm tactics especially by the players wearing a 
number ending in 3. The robust approach of one such individual even had Steve Lydiate threatening to ‘sort him out’. In fairness 
Martin P did stop one HH attack with a tackle that was so late that technically it should have been made in last week’s game – 
Howard would have been proud of it.  Thankfully the referee, a West Pymble player who turned up early for another game, kept a 
tight rein on things and the teams made it to halftime with limbs intact.

The second half was another tight affair with little goalmouth action at either end although most of the time was spent in LCW’s 
half.  The tackling was getting a bit more aggressive and a couple of the HH players were booked for their kind words about the 
parentage of the referee.

In such a tight game it was always going to be a close thing and Dave W again came to the rescue of LCW with a great save with 
the ball destined to sneak in at the near post but Dave somehow managed to stretch out a leg to turn it away.

Everyone worked very hard to keep the HH hordes at bay and John Sneddon continued to try and sell herbal products on the back of 
his new found fitness! 

The shortage of subs meant that we continually rotated the forwards with Bill & Andy L taking 10-15 minutes at a time. In fact it 
was Andy who brought the game to a close.  He was involved in collision with a HH player who tried to follow through on a tackle 
but instead of taking Andy out, which looked like it was his intention, ended up badly injuring his ankle.  He failed to recognise 
that Andy’s body is not made up of the usual 60% water content but is in fact 60% James Squire and therefore far denser.  A few 
minutes of rolling around and the ref decided that it was close enough to the end of the game to call it a day.

A hard fought and well deserved draw with the MOTM voting going to Matt Logan (aka Martin C), followed by another solid performance 
from Eric and Steve “The Phantom” Lydiate again in fine battling form coming in at number 3.