SAL Division 2 - 29th October 2005

I'll keep this brief as I am actually employed to work in a full time capacity.  The 1s entertained league leaders Ibis on Saturday with a slightly changed side due to ongoing and fresh injuries sustained the previous week.  However, the new senior squad policy is designed  to cope with these sorts of problems and allows players the opportunity to claim a shirt in the senior side.  This allowed Gary Cummings a starting berth in midfield and new recruit Adrian Dougherty a place on the bench.

The game kicked off and Cars started in an unusual manner by actually pressing the game and looking like the side who were much more up for it.  This culminated in an early goal, a typical Martin Vincent dash into the box, the keeper rushed out and carelessly gave Martin a nudge, penalty to Carshalton.  Wiggy tucked the ball away with aplomb.

Within 10 minutes, Carshalton had doubled the lead with a good team goal mainly thanks to the strangely fleet footed Wiggy, who, having skipped round one defender and then beat another for pace (yes that's right, pace) squared the ball for Rob Morley to tuck away. 

Right from the restart, Ibis pretty much ran through the heart of our midfield and defence and after a swift exchange of passes notched an annoying reply to our hard earned 2 goal lead.  The game really came alive after this and to be fair Ibis had a 15 minute spell where they exerted quite a lot pressure without much reward.  Toward the end of the half, Rob Morley raced on to a ball, where he arguably may have been in an offside position, and gave us a 2 goal cushion and 3-1 half time lead.

The second half was more of the same, Rob Morley, outstanding on the day, claimed his hat-trick with sheer bloody minded hard work, the boys work rate is phenomenal and his 3rd goal was testament to always chasing lost causes and taking chances when they arise. 

From this point, the game became a bit of a blur for me, they scored, we scored (Wiggy penalty), they scored, they scored again……at that stage I just wanted the final whistle (I'd had to ask Cavey what the actual score was) thankfully we were still leading 5-4 and from that point we managed to see the game out for the 3 points.

An entertaining game for the spectator, a nightmare for any defensive aficionado or purist.  The positives were the result and our attacking play.  From a player perspective, Wiggy and m.o.m Rob Morley created plenty of problems for the Ibis defence.  Gary Cummings, making his season debut for the 1's, looked very much the part and was all over the park in the air, tackle and distribution.  Andy Taylor continues to impress when he lays of the grog on a Friday.

Thank yous to Adrian Dougherty and Richard Bennett for contributing from the subs bench as we lost a few players to injury.

This weekend we are away to South Bank CUACO and I would gladly settle for a sedate clean sheet and a couple of goals.

Swanny