Great Game

Tom Rosselli

Games for the Mens 1s are becoming increasingly important: 'Huge Game', 'Enormous Game' - I've checked the thesaurus for some future adjectives for upcoming games: 'Colossal', 'Gargantuan', 'Mammoth', 'Massive' and 'Absolute Unit of a Game'. Basically at this stage, every game is a 'Vast' game (pushing my luck here).

I would describe this game as a 'Titanic Game' (Spoilers). Top of the table clash, six points on offer. Twenty-one players to be selected from, sixteen man squad plus Paul (credit to Stu, Harry and Paul, because I doubt selection this week was enjoyable).

South started strong. The emphasis was on intensity throughout and keeping our discipline. We were working the ball up the pitch nicely, linking up the midfield and forward line, leading to an early drive by Tom K who stepped smartly into the D to smash home a top corner finish. A good start for South, just what we needed.

Nomads responded with some dangerous attacking play, winning consecutive short corners and converting one to draw the scores level. South dropped on to the back foot, dropping the intensity slightly and Nomads popped in another goal. Heads dropped, but only briefly as some swift movement and passing lead to Harry L hitting (I know, a rare sight these days) a shot that was neatly deflected by Sam at the near post.

We go into the break two-two, lucky to have a Nomads' goal disallowed for some back stick shenanigans. The emphasis of the talk is to keep up the intensity throughout the second half, use our numbers and wear them down.

South press the attack. A nervy ten minutes from both sides sees some scuffles (the late rugby kick off clearly on some people's minds), cards and a lovely hit from Stu that cleared the fence and saw the bulk of the Lemon votes come his way. South pushed on and found that crucial goal to put them back in the lead - a crash ball into the D popped up for Mark to skillfully deflect it from high above his head into the goal (winning him MoM comfortably).

I wish I could end the match report here, but unfortunately Nomads aren't the sort of team to roll over and let us have it. They pushed right back and the next ten minutes saw some high pressure coming into our D, but South kept up the pace looking for more goals to seal the win. A couple of quick Nomads counters cut through the defense and put away two very well worked goals and all but sealed the loss for South. Three-four the final score.

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Mark Williams
Player of the Match

Great finish from the old man.

Stu Rimmer
Lemon of the Match

Superb clearance over the fence, clearly playing too much cricket recently.