A must win game after two successive league defeats saw us play Oaklands for the 2^nd time in a month.  After a heart to heart at training a couple of weeks ago we hopefully turned up more focussed on the football today than we had at Dosthill.  New signing Harvey Russell would make his debut upfront in place of Mike Halloran who is on holiday.  Brett is still nowhere near being fit and Rob is still banned so we had just Ryan and Jacko on the bench.

 

From the 1^st whistle we seemed to be at the races and we were quickly on top.  Will and Ross were dominating things and anyone of Dylan, Ben and Harvey looked like opening the scoring.  Harvey was holding up everything and clearly added something upfront.  It was obvious he and Ben had played together before as they instantly clicked.

 

Some more tough tackles from Will and it was he that laid on the first goal.  A good run and through ball and Dylan was in to score with a composed finish.

 

Dayle and Dyl continued to play off Harvey.  Our back four were solid and Pete and Gray were quickly into the tackle. 

 

The 2^nd goal was well deserved when Ben raced clear.  His shot was saved but only fell to Harvey who got his debut goal.  2 quickly became 3 when Ben scored a goal to match Dyls and we were 3-0 up with 25 minutes.

 

Then the game changed with some outside influences who may aswell being wearing Oaklands shirts got involved in the game in a way that we have come to expect.  Will made another great run and was through on goal when he was hacked down.  The ball ran to Ben who finished coolly again.  The ref blew the whistle and we all thought that he had blown to give us the free kick for the foul on Will.  Somehow the free kick was awarded to Oaklands.  Even their manager and assistant were laughing.

 

Minutes later Ross had a shot that came back off the bar.  Harvey smashed the rebound in.  The linesman did not flag.  As we all know, if that guy doesn’t flag that means you are yards onside.  The ref though decided that this was offside too.  So, 3-0 should by now have been 5.

 

From this point on practically every time we crossed the half way line a flag was raised or a free kick went to Oaklands.  This meant we found ourselves on the back foot and a terrific defensive display lead to a good win.  Mark and Matt had come into their own and Pete was terrific for the 3^rd game in a row.

 

Stokesy was on and doing a great job for the team up and down the wing.   James made a string of fantastic saves and punches to earn a man of the match display.  I said after Dosthill that all keepers make mistakes and the best ones bounce straight back. . enough said.  James was brilliant.

 

Will continued to battle away in midfield and he was a close 2^nd behind James for man of the match. 

 

Our best chances in the 2^nd half were Ben going though but being tackled and then again but the ball bobbled as he shot.  Dyl had a shot saved and Graham missed a sitter.  Ross shot wide.

 

A very good win when you consider the pitch and the circumstances that we endured.  High flying CCC are next.  We had a very competitive game with them a few weeks ago and their small pitch will make it another battle.

 

Today we focussed on the football and the result and it was a massive improvement.

 

Oaklands 0-3 Ravens

 

Grady

 

Mcloughlin         Foley               Coyne               Palmer

 

Williams(B)      Russell

 

Scorers: Mcloughlin (1), Russell (1), Williams(B) (1)

MoM: Grady 

Subs :Stokes, Foster