Match Report

Opposition: Commercial

Date: 30-Mar-2004

Time: 9:20pm

This match had played on my mind for sometime as we always compete closely although I think we are the better team they have some good players (Peter Cumin and their goalie, Cathy, are very good players).

We had our full team available for this game – all twelve of us (again).

We improvised again again (if this sounds like last week it's because I copied the line!) as Greg still isn't upto playing a fullbacks role – this time we used Ian and Ray and Greg played on the wing again. Otherwise the team was as you might expect – still old and knackered.

1st half.

We attacked right from the start as their marking was a little on the poor side and had numerous shots at goal - Cathy, their keeper, had a wonderful game in the net and it wasn't for about 20 minutes before Darryl sneaked one in with a clever little chip over the pads. It was at about this juncture that Stickers went to go from whoa to go and did a hammy - looks like a few days with ice and stretching coming up there! (It's always the first year back that you find all these muscles that never used to give you any bother – you usually go onto help your physio build a new wing on his house). I'm not certain of how the events went from this point on now as it's a couple of days since and the memories knackered (I think I've mentioned this before). I believe they got the equaliser from Peter Cumin through a penalty corner – I believe we need to sort out who stands in that corner blokes! and then Steve scored another of his trademark goals to get us into the lead at half-time. For the most part, we attacked during this half and I don't think we had to defend particularly hard. Our combination was a little off and a lot of our passes went astray, not something you would normally see really when we aren't pressured. Duriing the first half Neil had a great game in the right half spot – usually he is on the left defending and now that he is on the right he's enjoying the extra time in attack that it affords.

Half time score 2–1

2^nd Half

The Commercial half-time talk obviously had the desired effect as their marking was notably better in the second half and Steve and myself had shadows for the rest of the game, as did the other forwards. It was a while before we started swapping positions to thwart this type of marking, until we did that they played well and stopped our play–makers. They gained the upper hand with a couple of goals that probably should have been saved but Rickey was not on his game as much as he is usually.

The game was reasonably open and we moved the ball around well but we continued to fail to find that last pass. They frequently hit it long out of the right pocket to force us to come out from the 16 yard line but this just allowed us to transition to our right and put them under pressure (assuming we didn't cock up the play inbetween!). It's been a long time since I have seen the Tucker brothers miss as many passes between themselves, the two times they connected saw each of them scored a goal with Wayne's goal equalising the score at 3 each just before full time.

It's probably worthwhile mentioning that with 4 minutes to go our favourite player was sent from the field by the Easts umpire (JoD). I'm not a Peter apologist (as you know) but I think he was very hard done by as JoD was the one who lost control and sent Peter off for just glaring at him over some perceived wrong-doing. At this stage the incident didn't deserve even a comment but once JoD lost control of his emotions, so did Peter and from then on it was a most interesting carry-on, it continued way after the game had finished much to most peoples amusement. In my opinion the entire incident wouldn't have occurred if JoD had kept his cool. Whatever, the disruption of their defence certainly helped us get the last goal.

I did note that they had some senior players missing too. Their normal left half and a couple of others - if they get them back into the team it will certainly strengthen their defence.

Final Score 3–3.

Scorers: D Tucker, S Sawyers, W Tucker

Cards: None

Injuries: Stickers' hammy