The scoreline is convincing enough and we certainly did enough to win this one, but it is a measure of our improvement this season that we were unhappy with the manner of our performance.  We seemed to be half hearted and unconvincing, especially at the start of the game.  Some players strolled through the game and did not put in the kind of effort that has kept us unbeaten so far.  The reason we are unbeaten is that we work hard for each other.  Unfortunately today it just did not happen.

That said, of course, we are in the next round where we will face the winners of the Whyteleafe v Guildford City on 30th October.  There were some good points, not least some excellent individual performances, with Chris, Ryan and Ruaridh excelling.  Indeed it was Ruaridh who opened the scoring when he latched onto a loose ball and smashed it into the corner of the net midway through the first half.  That was the score at halftime (though I lost my mortgage when Arran missed when through on the keeper after some excellent skills).

In the second half, a wonderful cross from Arran was turned into the roof of the net by Jake from lose range, and I thought that would be the signal for us to play some football and score a few more goals.  But we made hard work of things and conceded a scrappy goal as Claygate started to believe an upset was on the cards.  We survived a close scare at 2-1 and immediately broke and within 6 seconds the ball was in the Claygate net with the best passing move of the match freeing Kristian and as he hit the ball from just inside the box there was only going to be one outcome.  A classy finish.

We could have had a few more, but that would have been rough justice on Claygate who battled hard throughout and ran us close at the end.  Plenty of lessons to be learned from this game.  Teams won't lie down for us - we all need to work as a team to compete with teams - especially those in the Premier Elite division.

Away to Worcester Park in the League cup next week and from experience that will be a much harder game.  they are a well organised team that turned us over 0-4 during our promotion season 2 years ago.  We will all have to pull our socks up if we want to progress.  We've shown our work ethic before and there is no reason why we can't get back to this.  hopefully today was just a blip and we can play our better football next week.

Buzz