Lane Cove West 4, St. Ives 1.
1st
July, Blackman
Following the postponement of our match
against Northbridge we were able to go into this match without any injuries
with the exception of Bill who is still threatening to return before the end of
the season. Don’t tell his wife!
We did however call upon the ever
reliable Chris Mitchell to add some depth to the squad while some of our
players continue to enjoy extended vacations.
The result will no doubt stretch our
resident statistician to the limit – four wins in a row, 14 goals scored and
only 4 conceded. It also represents our first double of the season following
our 3-1 win at the showground early in the season. This may not have occurred in the history of
the club so we can all be proud of yet another excellent performance all round.
We started brightly with Howard
returning to the back four to add some “weight” both mentally and physically
and Tim returned to share full back duties with Steve Lydiate
and Eric
Bob Armstrong had pushed up into
midfield and it was clear what his plan was – pop the ball over their back four
for Matty and Mark to chase. Early exchanges showed St.
Ives had a bit of pace in midfield but were clearly weak at the back and Bob’s
strategy lead to our first goal. A
lovely ball over the top and Matt was onto it pursued by the opposition
defence. The shot was parried I think but bounced up for Matt to nod the ball
into the back of the net. 1-0.
The first half followed a similar
pattern with a number of half chances for LCW but nothing clear cut. To be fair
St. Ives also had some chances. One particularly nasty ball into our box seemed
to bounce around until I tried to send it into the bush behind our goal only
for it to be saved beautifully by Tony Norman’s jaw! I did manage to get the rebound out of danger
but maybe a “Jaw Save” is a first too!
The only significant event that
followed was Matty “Bring back the Biff”
The discussion spilled over into the
half time break with the opposition captain invading our territory to continue
his discussion with Matt! Howard finally
restored sanity by getting the referee to bring the team captains together to
sort it out.
Cue big hug between Matty and the St. Ives perpetrator at the start of the
second half and away we went.
We stepped up a gear in the second
half and again began cause St.Ives with our passing
game. John Sneddon and Mark Sehn
were linking up particularly well down the right and eventually forced a corner. Again we seem to have found another weapon in
our armoury this season with our set pieces. Must be the fact that we don’t
practice them in training! John S sent
in a delightfully floated corner and the moment I saw Peter appear it was all
over. The trademark “lazy” header where he just lets the ball do the work was a
pleasure to watch and we increased the lead.
After that we kept the pressure up
and our third was almost a carbon copy of the second. Great corner by John –
cracking header by Peter. 3-0.
We did have a minor wobble after a
defensive mix up let St. Ives pull one back and a couple of half chances were
taken care of by our rock steady keeper Tony.
The best in my opinion was kept till
last – Matt Logan scoring an absolute beauty from the edge of the area (I
think). The ball seemed to curve beautifully over the keeper to make it a great
4-1 win for the Coves.
Honourable mentions should go to all
of the team as it was again a great team performance all round. Chris Mitchell
looked like he had been playing all season and gets a big thank you.
Man of the match of course went to
Peter Ware, Matt was second and third place for Mark Sehn. A special mention should go to the
performance of the entire defence and in particular an excellent Howard performance
by Howard. Also John Sneddon
put in some of the superb crosses which let Pete do his magic.
Bring on Northside
Monash – I think we will approach this one bit different to last time!
Martin Poolan