Since there has been a serious lack of match reports lately, here's one from the Raiders:
Raiders 2 - 0 Uni
Stallions.
Another excellent win and the Raiders roll on. There were
nervous times (mainly for me) in the leadup, with a few injuries about,
but we got 10 on the pitch for kickoff. Jolly (forgot shin pads), Guy
(working hard, no doubt) and Matt (fill in) came along eventually and
gave us the numbers.
Stallions are not a bad team, I know this from
playing them plenty in the past. But, apart from a couple of decent
players and a few good periods, they didn't trouble us much on Wakefield
last night.
Iain and myself had a lot of time in the midfield, with
our opposites misdirecting a lot of passes. Our defence also gave us
plenty of good ball, everyone across the back played very well and Karl
was assured in goal. I think he had to make one save all night, the
Stallions' forw...ards weren't up to much.
It was 0-0 at the
half but about 10 minutes into the second spell Iain laid on a superb
ball for Andy T, who got square of the goalie and dinked it over him.
1-0 was only what we deserved and then the Raiders kicked into gear. The
last 30 minutes was ALL Raiders - we could have had a few more goals,
but Iain's effort from outside the box, that hit the underside of the
bar (goalie was completely stranded) made it comfortable.
They
weren't in the same league as us and it reflected our confidence. The
backs moved the ball out of their lines with ease, the midfielders
linked well with wide players, and Andy T and Jules were dangerous all
night. Jules had a couple of good chances but it just wasn't his night;
he and Andy came back for the ball a lot and gave great options.
I've never been grabbed so much at corners or battling for headers (my
marker at corners insisted on linking his arm through mine), the
Stallions were quite handsy and bullish off the ball. Maybe they should
have been concentrating on what their feet were doing instead of
touching us up...
Matt and Pavel were excellent subs. Jolly managed
to hurt himself landing after a screaming header, and Guy and Grant are
in doubt for Saturday. It's getting to that part of the season where
people are getting niggles, but we'll get there.
Superb effort
all-round. Bring on Suburbs!
5 comments:
slightly one sided review that methinks - neglected to mention long periods (including parts of the last 30 mins) where we dominated... as for the moaning about our physicality, didn't really witness much of that to be fair.. i thought it was a relatively clean game
(only 1 free kick conceded by me (= )
and the ref was keeping a fairly watchful eye on things
we played some nice footie i thought but they were probably just about deserving - 2 cracking finishes
Joe
Personally, I think we can take pride in our approach at the back; opposition players do not enjoy our physicality. I'd like them anticipate that they will be hurting after a game against us.
That said, we did concede two goals, which is disappointing, and we scored none, which is also disappointing.
I reckon its pretty fair. We just haven't stood up against the Raiders this season - something about the way they play gets the best of us. One team we really want to do well against, but they seem to have the ability to knock the stuffing out of us and then make us pay. I find them one of the harder teams to face in the middle - hard to win much ball and they always mark up well so will take their criticism (I'm sure its me who they mean is crap in the middle, not you Lloyd!). But I reckon its those nippy forwards that make the difference. But yeah, we were terrible against them again. Time to change that around - we need to, some tough games ahead.
i thought we had 3 decent chances first half - rauru's header, lloyd's chance and the one i flashed across the goal - and that had we got one of those, we would have been well set. but we didn't and we suffered in the second half.
we do lack the same attacking verve that they have. compared to us, they seem to launch attacks quicker than us, and get to attacking our full backs with more danger than us.
"misdirecting passes" was certainly true - i don't know what was up with my passing, but i must have misplayed about 10 in that first half.
but can't believe that we are that dirty!
Perception is a funny thing. Except for that 20-25 minute spell at the beginning of the 2nd half I thought that it was evenly balanced, though definitely didn't create many opportunities in the 2nd half.
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