Men's 1s vs Middleton M1

Middleton

Recent weeks has seen the sham either blitz a side 10-0 or achieve the opposite by struggling to score altogether. Which was it to be against the poor performing Middleton team?

The latter!

We turned up on time and attempted multiple methods in reaching the pitch and eventually found our way. Yes I’m talking about the arrival to the pitch as this was arguably one of the highlights of the day as the following performance was somewhat missing.

When the match started both Dave and Rham were discussing whose hamstring was worse and it didn’t take long to find out. Man down is becoming a common theme and the team were left with the bare 11 pretty soon.

The play itself was pretty decent but we struggle to make that final pass or find a clear shot on goal. We managed to get several short corners but without the usual stick stoppers it was a real struggle to find where the goals were going to come from.

The opposition had a very effective backline and picked us off time and time again, even if it did result in them needing several guys bulldozing us off the ball. Flo did point out that it isn’t dangerous unless 4 people knock you over which was rewarded by a green card soon upgraded to a yellow by explaining that I was simply talking to my own team mates (who incidentally were the ones moaning!)

First goal came from them on a breakaway and a decent hard strike from the top of the D. It felt a bit like it went against the run of play but they were at time deceptively good and threw countless aerials to removed pressure from our press.

Towards the end of the match we started to gel a bit better and Chris scored a great first time slap/strike/flicky shot that only he can do. Shock horror it actually didn’t go a millions miles over the cross bar but in fact it was burrowed top corner. Pretty classy!

The pressure was all on Middleton who finally starting seeing a team that we could be.

However it was too little too late. Notable performances from Rham, headey and Ruthen. Countless tackles, great marking and relentless work rate, Rham got the MOM and with very few DoD potential nomination opportunities I took the prize for my cards (Everyone pretty much forgot Alex got carded too btw!). Time to lick our wounds and started figuring out a way to bounce back. The new pitch build might be the motivation we need to see a way out of this rut