Match Report – Brooklyn 4 LCW 0

Team:             

Kye

Jason            Daniel               Richie                Ed

Simon            Paul                 Dave                Smirk

                        Matt                 Tristan

Subs:   Neil, Milce, Al and Mark G

The team turned up at the scenic Brooklyn oval on a beautiful sunny day to find a tumble weeds blowing across the sandpit that was the Brooklyn pitch. 

Not sure who won the toss but we started with the sun at our backs and kicked of facing up hill and feeling confident. Our confidence was short lived as our back line soon came under pressure from some good through balls from the Brooklyn attack. Our newly formed back line took a little too long to settle in and it wasn't very long before their striker latched on to a good through ball catching the defence flat footed and calmly putting the ball in the back of the net. At this point we seemed to lose our voices a little and we went very flat. Brooklyn took another sortie into our 18 yard box and just when we thought we had diffused the danger there winger somehow got a deflected cross to land at their strikers feet and he finished in the top corner to put Brooklyn 2-0 up. To our credit we then stepped up the aggression a bit and started putting their players under pressure this was exemplified none better than Paul winning a fifty fifty challenge in the air knocking out the opposing midfielder. The players nearby heard an almighty crack and neither Paul nor the Brooklyn player looked like they were going to get up. Luckily Paul's head cleared and managed to walk away the Brooklyn midfielder was not so lucky and was taken of to hospital with one of his team mates proclaiming in a light hearted tone “Oh my god he's got two top lips”.

We went to the half time break feeling a bit down about the scoreline but still feeling we could get back into the game.

We began the second half with a lot more purpose and it seemed we had remembered how to play football again. The midfield were controlling the game with Simon going for a few runs through traffic and Paul and Dave getting involved in some nice one two's through the middle of the pitch. It seemed only a matter of time before we broke down the Brooklyn defence and pulled one back. At one stage Richie went for a lovely run forward linking up with Paul and Nick on the left and the back line started to smile thinking that we might be able to put Lane Cove's first goal of the year in the net – alas it wasn't to be. Somewhat against the run of play Brooklyn caught the defence out again with their striker breaking out from half way on a long run. Kye came out and made a great save blocking the eventuating shot only to have it fall nicely for the Brooklyn support to finish into an open goal.

At this point the Lane Cove spirit had been broken and the fight back that might have been didn't eventuate. We seemed to be playing for time and our dominance of the midfield fell away toward the end of the second half. From memory Brooklyn's fourth goal came from some scrappy play in our 18 yard box when we were unable to clear the ball away the exact details though I can't recall.

The game then petered out to a scrappy finish with Lane Cove well and truly beaten 4-0. There were some positives to take out of the game with a much improved effort defending set pieces where we marked up well and didn't look like conceding. At times we played some good passing football and fitness wise we were still there at the end. That said I expect sergeant Sean will be cracking the whip on Wednesday night...