Winter League Game Week #8 - vs Stellenbosch A (Mens 2s)

Opponents: Maties A

Venue: Mutual

Date: 10 June 2012

Time: 13h30

The last game before the mid season break was against Maties A. We gathered at Mutual astro on Sunday afternoon with several of us shaking off the last of our hangover compliments to Panda’s 21^st and various other events from the night before. We knew from the word go we were in for a long hard game today, especially with only one on the bench! We also welcomed Giggles and Giger to the team seeing as they see Province practice as more important than Mutual training and Vis decided to drop them.

The game started with play being pretty open but Maties persistent running quickly began to take its toll on the 2s. There wasn’t much created from either side in terms of chances but Maties grabbed the opener after a pass across goal was intercepted by Curly however he couldn’t control it and put it past Giger. (Tosser - so in other words it was an own goal...) Maties then began to run the show and picked up another goal from a shorty after they put in a ripper of a drag! We had several good movements but we couldn’t get much momentum and struggled to create chances with many balls coming out the back and finding strikers without any options.

Maties added a third goal before we finally decided to put a ball in the Maties goal instead of our own #tellCurly. I played a ball out from the back which found Carl who drove forward and gave Giggles a superb through ball which he received in the D and proceeded to scrimmage the keeper before cooly slotting a close range back stick. 

Mutual 1 - Maties 3 and this is how the half ended.

We went into the second half with a change in tactics and with the momentum after we scored. We had made life difficult for Maties by using a half court press and as a result they struggled to find passes. We were marking superbly and countering well but we just struggled to make that final pass work. Eventually as the legs began to give in we made a mistake at the back and Maties grabbed a fourth.

We found a second win and began to attempt a comeback in the second part of the half but we just couldn’t break the Maties backline even with our youngsters, namely Carl, Giggles and Patches, creating havoc showing off some dazzling skills. 

So it ended Maties 4 – Mutual 1.

Perhaps too harsh a score line for our performance but Maties were the better side on the day. We go into the break knowing we are condemned to the bottom six and we can only focus on looking to win our last few games to secure a solid log position. Its been a tough season so far but now the lads have just gotta keep working during the break to ensure we pick up good results.

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Deny