Merton 5s v West Wickham 6s – 8th September 2011

Having made a great start to our 2011/12 campaign in both the League and SAL Cup, we welcomed West Wickham to our satellite ground of Wimbledon Common Extensions. Having arrived with only 2 minutes to kick off there was no option but to punish Tee and Patrick by naming on the bench. Yes it weakened the starting XI however they need to realise that they have to abide by the rules that everyone else does. Meeting times are set for a reason. This resulted in Chris Dodd starting having just returned from injury and Luke Freestone playing alongside Ben up top.

The first half was one that could be forgotten in a flash after going into the break 3-0 down. Sloppy defending on all 3 occasions was to blame, that and a combination of route one football by West Wickham. This may be a little harsh on the visitors for their third actually. A delightful ball from the right was guided in by a diving header which Darren just failed to connect with. Great goal, it was just disappointing to be part of the opposing side.

The team talk at half time was one of many words, it didn’t help that they were coming from all directions at the same time. We knew we were better then what we had shown in the first half and this was justified…..for the first 20 minutes of the second period anyway.

We re-started the second half and seemed to have West Wickham on the back foot. It was clear that they had opted not to come out and play the route one football that worked for them in the opening 45 minutes and this was something we were able to capitalise on. We reduced the deficit on the hour mark when a delivery from Aaron was toe-poked home by Ben. It wasn’t long until we reduced to deficit again when Lee converted Aaron’s corner into the bottom left. West Wickham looked shaky at this point and knew that they had to revert back to route one in order to keep hold of their lead or add to it. This is exactly what happened…..

With 15 minutes to go, a poor attempt to win possession by Lee allowed their number 12 to easily lob Glento make it 4-2. Not long after was it 5-2. A ball hit long by the West Wickham defence made its way into ourbox however with myself shielding the opposing player from getting to it, Glen stalled on coming to claim it. When he did he decided to attempt to kick it rather than go to ground and gather it. His kick came back off yours truly and into the back of the net.

It was a poor performance by all. Next week we visit HSBC where we hope to put Saturdays performance behind us and claim another 3 points to assist in guiding us up the table.

Team: Glen Field (GK), Dan Outred, Lee Lenihan (Capt.), Darren Avey, Edward Plaistow, Dulanie Richards, Chris Dodd (Patrick Mhondiwa), Aaron Ackerman , Chris Outred, Luke Freestone (Tee Nash Bizayi), Ben Lawrence (Laurence Bispham)

MOM:

Written by: Edward Plaistow