We finally got this game on at the third attempt. I was a little disappointed we only had 12 players on the day? But I felt we had more than enough quality in those 12 players to cope.
We travelled down to Eastleigh not knowing much of our opposition, we anticipated a hard game as this was the last 16 of the Hampshire cup. The game was played on a typical Sunday league pitch, not very good. We started pretty slowly and got caught being a bit casual but you could see from the outset we were a better team, as this was our first game in 5 weeks you could understand why.
To be fair to Eastbrook had quite a bit of possession without ever stretching us. On 12 minutes Skedy was put through, as he bore down on the keeper a Eastbrook player pulled Skedy back, the referee had no hesitation in awarding a penalty, as the Eastbrook player was the last man he was shown a straight red, those are the rules but a bit harsh, their keeper was booked as well for his protest. The spot kick was duly dispatched by Craig.
The contest probably stopped there! We dominated possession and had several clear chances to finish them off but failed to press home our advantage the best chance coming on 33 minutes, Joey put Hoggie through, as their keeper closed Hoggie down he dinked the keeper to see his shot hit the bar.
On 38 minutes a bad goal kick from their keeper went straight Craig, who happily accepted the ball, raced back to their goal and slipped the ball pass their keeper, 2-0.
The second half started with us increasing the tempo, Hoggie put Craig through who curled the ball around the on coming keeper, 3-0, class finish. Almost straight away Skedy blazed a shot over the bar when it looked easier to score?
We never really got into gear after that, which is just as well for Eastbrook as we could have scored a lot of goals.
On 75 minutes we took Craig off mainly to give Nobby, our only sub a go up front, he was banging on in my ear telling me how good he would be up front! When he came on he twice injured their keeper chasing the ball down , nothing nasty and would you believe it on the 90th minute we got a corner, which was taken short between Matt and Gaz, the resulting cross, by Matt was met by Nobby, who’s header flew into the top left hand corner, a terrific goal, this was almost the last kick of the game. I know Eastbrook only had 10 men for most of the match but I don’t think they had a chance on goal?
There were several candidates for man of the match, Craig scored a good hatrick, Skedy was unlucky and could have scored at least a couple of goals, nearly every player had good spells, Chris did an excellent job as a stand in goalkeeper for Sam who was carrying a knock and couldn’t play, he did everything asked of him, made a couple of good saves and looked to have a safe pair of hands! but my choice came down to Hoggie or Joey, with Joey getting the nod.
Team : Chris, Giggsy, Ian, Will and Twiggy. Gaz, Joey, Hoggie (C) and Matt. Craig (Nobby) and Skedy
Subs: Nobby.
Scorers : Craig (3, 1 pen) and Nobby.
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