Another Saturday, another clash with the 3B’s – so again i stepped in for John to look after the Div 5 boys.

This time we had the short away trip to Pultney.

Pultney have been struggling this season. But when we only had 14 players available, and 9 of those were 38 or older (in some cases MUCH older) i was a little concerned as to how we’d fare, as we really only had 1 player with genuine pace.

The good news was – the pitch at the old harriers track was magnificent, and we were welcoming Robby, John G and Martins back into the fold after a few injuries.

Pre-game i’d asked the boys to stick to short passing & work the ball up the field, as our lack of pace meant we had no real outlets for a long ball.

We got underway & a bit like last week – right from the outset we were put under pressure. Pultney’s midfield pressed high, and we let ourselves down with some sloppy passing giving Pultney plenty of freebies.  Thankfully the defence and particularly our keeper Markus held strong & we were able to keep them at bay.

At the other end, we weren’t creating too much – but from a corner we did manage to create one chance – the initial corner was cleared, but we managed to get the ball back into the box where Jason hooked a shot in nicely, but straight at the keeper who somehow managed to somehow spill it back into the net. Congratulations to Jason who after 19 years on and off with the club – finally had his first ever Uni Whites goal!

After that Pultney again spent a lot of time in control as we were stuck in our own half, so it was a relief when the ref blew the whistle for half time.

At the break it felt like i repeated my half time speech from the week before. Better passing, win the 50-50 balls and we’d be a good chance.

Pultney though had the earlty ascendancy and Markus had to make a couple of full stretch saves. The defence were working ovetime as Pultney won numerous free kicks around the box but somehow we kept the scoreline at 1-0.

Taka came on after a shortly after the break – and all of a sudden he was breaking free on the wing – this seemed to lift the team and our midfield began to take control with GT and Matt now moving the ball around well.

Martins playing up front managed to score the 2nd goal with a shot from just outside the box on the left – although again the keeper probably should have done better. Congratulations to Martins for his first goal in his second season with the club.

From this point we were well on top. Taka put the icing on the cake burying a 3rd as he took on the defence and finished nicely to score on debut!

The final result was a 3-0 win, which i’ll take any day. But credit must go to Pultney who spent long periods of the game in control but couldn’t get a breakthrough.

Man of the match was Markus in goals, withough him the scoreline would have been a lot different.

The win keeps us in touch with the top two (now just 1 point off the top), so everything to play for in the coming weeks. Hopefully see all of you out at training!

That’s it.

Saf