Staines 4′s 3 Ashford 4′s 3
Scorers: Fat Dan (2), Gordo
Having endured the wrong end of a 14-goal thriller in the first game, spectators had to settle for your standard 6-goal thriller and mixture of excellent play punctuated by fractious episodes.
Red-and-Blacks were strengthened by the return of BB – his first run out this season after a serious back problem and he helped settle the team and start much the better of the 2 teams. It was no surprise when we took the lead and what a good goal it was: BB picked the ball up in the inside-left channel outside the 25 and smacked it across to The Shagster in the inside-right channel, he clipped the ball to Shaunie past a flat-footed Phil Lazlo and Shaunie belted it and though the ‘keeper saved well, the rebound fell to Fat Dan and he couldn’t miss! (Actually he could miss if you’ve ever seen him play but not this particular time)
After a poor 15 minutes, Staines started to show why they are top but it was still poor marking rather than good play which allowed them to equalise though the lad finished well…Staines started to push us back and, a rarity for us, we got a bit ruffled.
Second half team talk was a mixture of testostorone and Voice of Reason, BB, anyway whatever went on, we started very positively (again), forced a short corner and a BAW (Big Adam Whack this time) was deflected in by an excitable Gordo who went off high-fiving anyone who dared to get in the way. We forced another short corner which Big Amit dummied and slipped left and Fat Dan had all the time in the world (well not really as the game only had 30 mins left, so he had 30 mins) to flick the ball past Phil Lazlo who wimped out of heading the ball.
With the lead and our tails up, we had chances to make it 4-1, Ant in goal also made a terrific block, but we were playing and defending well. Unfortunately, the fractious nature of the game upset us – and we didn’t help ourselves – and seemed to energise Staines but it was still a surprise when they got a goal back with 15 mins to go.
Staines pushed hard and just as we seemed to have things in hand, just over 2 mins to go, a hopeful flick came off one of our sticks and their lad batted the balled past Ant.
Probably a fair result over the 70 minutes but fair to say we were the more disappointed.
