U.S 4 v 3 Marist Cobras Endeavour park #1 12.30pm 18th july 09

What was looking like a casual stroll too an easy three points ended up being a great game of end to end football if you're a neutral that is Stallions grinding out a hard fought yet controversial game of footy 4-3

Being transferred from the "bog of eternal stench" Nairnville park to the wonderful carpet like Endeavour park in Whitby is I'm guessing much like being upgraded from the outhouse to the penthouse fabulous and with the ground perfect, the weather also absolutely stunning it had too be one of the best days we've ever had to play football in a longtime.How Wests who have bugger all teams in cap soccer gets to have a field like this amazes me, therein lies the answer I guess

With Marist roping in anyone they could bludge from the teams playing adjacent to U.S due to them only having 9 players turn up and a neutral cap football ref the stallions finished their warm up feeling pretty confident a win was in the bag.

Marist kicked off and we began to put them under pressure they were barely getting the ball out of their half the first few minutes and the stallions were playing the ball around to feet quite well holding onto possession well and forcing Marist to put the ball out of play a lot.

Marist score 1st
It was completely against the run of play Marist's opening goal a bit of a defensive muck up found the Marist striker one on one with brooks who could do little to stop the ball going under his feet into the back of the net to give Marist a shock early lead 1-0 12minutes

We knew we'd been sucker punched, but it was only a light tap, we got up and kicked off, this time going forward and really starting to open them up with Rauru and Tristin running some nice lines the defense often bypassed the midfield by playing route one football only for U.S to be called offside by the ref even when clearly onside.

The ref was a funny wee bugger, he made some of the most bizarre calls I've seen and he is a fully fledged ref for capital soccer, no slide tackles AT all, umm it's not ballet bro and Joe was pinged for a high knee, lol, a high knee when all he did was lift his leg to control the ball

Our 1st
We'd been in their half for a fair bit of the 1st period and we finally got a corner with Paddy swinging the ball in it found a Marist defenders head who cleared the ball back to paddy who again sent the ball in,Rauru came storming into the outer area of the 6 yard box and he hammered the ball from the right hand side into the top left hand corner of the goal with the sweetest of headers to give U.S a level footing 1-1 after 18minutes

With Marist's head dropping just a little and the stallions looking to press on it wasn't long before we again found ourselves with more shots on goal.
We had put Tristin in good positions a couple of times, one he took a shot only for the keeper to save the ball which was parried out to Aaron who neatly curled the ball into the goal a great bit of follow up work only for the ref to call him offside and disallow what appeared to be a legitimate goal albeit I was 20 yards behind the ref in our own half of the field at the time but it looked good to me, Aaron was running around like a headless chook celebrating for a good 10 -15 seconds before the reality set in his goal would not stand,that Didier Drogba you tube link Rauru posted earlier this season sums it up nicely.

Our 2nd
They really were letting U.S move the ball around and whilst we didn't get it right every time there were moments when looked really good on the ball, given that 7 goals were scored you can forgive me for forgetting some of the finer moments but our 2nd was scored by Tristin I'm going to ramble on and say it came from a Rauru pass which he latched onto and sent the ball past the keeper into the net 2-1 after 30minutes

Halftime
Feeling reasonably pleased we wanted to start the 2nd half the brightest of the two teams and dominate early

2nd half
Standing in defense waiting for U.S to kick off Jason queried why Hodges and Spencer were both standing out left I thought he was joking surely it was obvious we were employing our only attacking set play the hoof it left and make the left winger run hard to chase it down and send in a cross, sharpen up jase we tried that last weekend too remember ;)

And we failed I believe,
Anyway the game was end to end it began to open up and it meant Marist were having opportunities of their own

Their 2nd
We didn't really shut them down as the came forward and after twisting and turning our defence they managed to get a shot off that went in making the game all even again 2-2 52mins played

Bullsh!t was the general call to that all the defenders agreed we let ourselves down there so it was pleasing to see U.S step up and shut them down for the remainder of the game.

our 3rd
With U.S going forward we were beginning to open them up Panda had received the ball just inside our half and sent a delightful through ball to Tristin who with the keeper coming out off his line curled the ball beautifully around and over the keeper into the net and back in the lead we went 3-2 60minutes

We continued to keep the ball in the marist half and had the ball out on the right hand side, as the ball was crossed into the box it hit a marist players hand and the ref duly awarded a penalty.
With Tristin grabbing the ball a voice cried out from the back I'll take it,give it to me" and up stepped John Terry no wait hang on Jason, he puts the ball on the dot asks the ref if he must wait for the whistle before he can kick, the whistle is blown and Jason is scared by the noise the whistle makes he jumps and sends the meekest shot on goal I've seen since Nick Goodall's clanger out at Petone the other season the ball trickles along the ground to the right hand side of goal only for the lunging keeper to get a hand on the ball and save it the ball going out for a corner
ha ha

Their 3rd
Man how that missed penalty would come back to bite U.S in the bum remember how I said the ref was a bit of a twat actually I said funny wee bugger but after this episode I think he is a twat.
We found ourselves defending our goal and whilst in the 18 yard box Ben Hodges made a brilliant sliding tackle to claim the ball cleanly from the Marist player the ref remember wouldn't allow slide tackles and gave the Marist side a penalty you can guess who'll take an angry man fine after that decision (me) for farks sake I mean I can accept an opposition player as the ref giving a dodgy call like that but really a capital football ref no way.
So the Marist striker steps up shoots the ball and leaves poor brooks unable to stop the ball going in the net game tied 3-3 70minutes

our 4th and winner
Furious is a good word to describe that goal but to our credit we fought on and with time slowly drifting away a through ball again had their defence opened up hoping for an offside that would never come and trusty Tristin went one on one with the keeper getting the better of him and scoring his hatrick and the winner 4-3 80minutes

They tried to grab a late equaliser and whilst in our box Graham and a Marist player came together as the ball went out of play the Marist player went down and howled out for a penalty, Graham stood up and over him in full forceful voice told him just how much of a lie er he was in no uncertain terms, the player got up and crawled away back to position for U.S to take the goal kick,the game would carry on the Stallions eventually holding on to record a well deserved 4-3 victory

Stallions : Ben Brooks,Corey,Jason,Paddy,Mike,Joe,Ben Hodges,Aaron,Tristin,Rauru
Subs: Spencer,Panda

Goals : Rauru,Tristin (3)

This week Stokes Valley @ Delaney park 12.30pm our last game of the regular season