St. Ives 0, Lane Cove West 2

12 July 2008, Primrose

Prior to kick off St Ives sat bottom of the league with only one win against the second bottom team Berowra and ten defeats. So why do we always feel nervous before playing the weaker teams? It could be something to do with our unique ability to allow ourselves to be dragged down to the same standard as them. However, lets not get carried away we haven’t even kicked off yet.

As usual a few last minute changes always makes life exciting for the person organising the team. Thankfully Mark is back at the weekend and I can go back to worrying about where my wife has put my socks etc.

Bobby failed a late fitness test, Scott came back, we drafted Alan in once again and Phil Silver made a welcome return to action albeit in goal for the first time and very much appreciated it was too. We had also stolen Dave Pritchard from the over 35’s to bolster our ranks as we have hit that time of the season where old limbs start to falter and people go off to Europe for long periods of time. Why can’t they go at Xmas like me!!

So – here we go – kick off. First minute ball goes wide to Peter who drifts the ball into James. Neat side foot past the keeper and we are 1-0 up in the first minute. Even my children we cheering on the touchline before they decided running off into the bush was more exciting than watching Dad.

A few minutes later Dave Pritchard arriving late was inches away from connecting with a cross from the left to emulate his previous appearance for us. Unfortunately he scored last time but not today.

This was going to be a walk in the park surely! At this point we somehow seemed to lose the ability to function as a team. For the next 25 minutes the back four were under constant pressure and we didn’t threaten St. Ives at all.

St. Ives were moving the ball well to the forwards and had a sweeper that in my opinion didn’t look like he had conceded 38 goals this season. Maybe they had all returned from injury at the same time. The alternative conclusion was that we as always got a bad case of nerves and didn’t kill them off early on which I have to admit is a familiar pattern this season.

The main talking point of the first half was that we actually went 2-0 up for a short period of time. Another great cross from Peter on the right but just before it left his foot James had decide to fool his marker back switching and heading for the back post. The ball landed perfectly on his head but by now he was actually facing in the wrong direction and the ball bounced off the back of his head and past the keeper. The keeper scrambled frantically to grab the ball but the linesman flagged to signal “GOAL”:

I have to say I was at least 30 metres away and the keeper didn’t really scramble but walked back and picked it up so I was a little skeptical as were his team mates and the referee more importantly. The Ref consulted the linesman and identified that a good understanding of the rules is always useful when running the line and that a foot over the goal line while holding the ball only applies to rugby!! So we remained at 1-0 up at half time.

We had in fairness some good long range efforts from Scott in the first half so surely it was just a case of getting organised and the goals would flow.

We managed one of these, we were definitely better organised in the second half and to be fair took control of the game but I have to say we didn’t hit any kind of fluid form. To be honest prior to writing this I sat and thought for some time about whether I had missed some major incidents and other than our second goal but I came up blank.

The second goal however was however another statistical event that I am sure Mark Bryant will have some interesting facts to tell us about on Saturday.

I think the chance came from a corner but my memory again is failing. Anyway the goal came from a goal mouth scramble with no one being able to stick the ball away until up strode Ernie like a colossus to punt the ball into the back of the net to take his tally to 2 for the century. How many of us can claim two goals this century? I have managed one – against an opponent – maybe a few more in my own net! Brian I think scored his first this century a few weeks ago. One for discussion this weekend I think.

That was pretty much it – Phil put in a great performance in goal, coming out to collect the ball and assist the defence on numerous occasions. An indication of either St. Ives lack of craft in front of goal or the tightness of our back four mean’t that Phil didn’t really have many direct saves to make. I think one in the first half but that was about it.

This was emphasized by the man of the match voting were myself and Brian took first place, James second place and someone else third (I really must write it down next time – as Brian quite rightly pointed out he got 2^nd place last week not 3^rd).

So three points but a disappointing result and performance but we will make amends this weekend!

MARTIN POOLAN