v Redcliffe (May 20) 1-3

1^st Half

Wes - our reliable extra player was on hand again, and again he had to play for the oppostion because they were more short of players than we were. We changed the team around a little as Neil was stuck in Maroochydore and Graeme Wallace was unavailable. Greg dropped back to left half, Bruce to left wing and Ian Wicking to Right Wing - not an inspired move as the evening wore on. Bruce struggled on the left wing a little - this was mainly due to his injured rib (at least Col ddidn't welcome him this week with a pat on the broked rib!).

The first half saw us maintain good possession and position with excellent passing and team work all round. We quickly established dominancy and yours truely, and Bruce, had several options to open the scoring - the keeper wasn't troubled though! The outside of the goal copped a hammering as did a couple of their players as some of my crosses were a little high.

Our slow build up was ultimately our downfall and continued to be the cause of our problems during this match. With about 90 seconds to go after pressuring their goal and involving our halves in the build up we turned the ball over and our midfield was missing - they transissoned the ball quickly up the right and unfortunately into our goal. Half time score 1 zip.

2^nd Half

Pixie, from Redcliffe dominated this half from his inside right position and started to cause us some havok near the circle. A clever freehit from the top of the circle saw Nev deflect a ball into the net... 2 zip. We pulled one back a little later to get back into the game (buggered if I can remember this - the hit to me head the other week perhaps). The play see-sawed up and down the field - we often put 10 passes together to press into attack but still could not penetrate their defence, when we did our shots were crook, the penalty corners we won were duffed or we were dispossessed. Steve was marked well by Pixie, and he marked Pixie well - Pixies dominance mostly occurred when Steve was fetching his stick from somewhere - I think he had soap on the handle. At one point Steve was lonely at the top of their goal circle with ball trapped, net occupied by just their keeper - quick backswing - stick shot out of his hands backwards about 5 metres. (looked funny but didn't help the scoring). On a couple of other occassions he was off drying his stick handle - it was obvously bugging him dreadfully and it was perhaps better that he did dry it off - losing it on the downswing could be a little messy - could distract the keeper though

With 15 minutes to go I attempted to rally the teams spirits (you know - "come on chaps plenty of time to get back into the game" etc). They scored another goal (3-1 now). I should shut up. We continued to put neat passing manouvers together and continued to turn it over when we involved the halves thus exposing ourselves to quick counter-attack. To some extent this was due to their left inside sitting rather high and not being picked up by me immediately - this left us without the spare back player to sweep and Johnnies not the fastest on the field - the most determined though. We missed Owen back their to steady the ship and to rally the troops - Rick is very quiet in the net.

Ian Wells saved lots of shots off the goalline during the last 15 minutes and Col stopped a good cross with the top of his foot. Ian's toe is broken and Col has a saw foot.

All players are okay for Monday V University so for once we should have a substitute - that'll be novel - we sure to fuck that up.

Injuries Ian Wells broken toe and Colins bruised foot.

Goals

Steve Sawyers