Match Reports from Saturday 28th October

Men’s 2nd XI 1-0 Coalville 2nd XI

Goals: Adam Hall

Q: Can we do it on a cold windy day in Coalville?

As the day started, a small contingent of 2s (half still arrived late for the 12pm meet) met for the travel to Coalville. They arrived pitch side with a team of 12, the majority of the line-up were speedy masters looking to run the opposition ragged. However this looked to be a tough ask as Coalville lined up with a 15 man squad.

The game started with the returning Dave ‘Wenners’ Wennington having a rest from the warm up.

Opportunities came and went for both, with the Saints front line coming within inches of a Simon ‘Chappers’ Chapman style tap in. Pretty evenly matched throughout that half. The only real moment of skill was Max Wilkinson’s through ball to Wenners, found with the most precise of accuracy.

The second half started with much of the same end to end evenly matched throughout. The key moment being from a short corner for Saints:

Chapman injected pinged it out to skipper Athiq Thamby, who in turn fed it to Adam ‘Tank’ Hall. He wound up and struck it with such force that the keeper was shocked when the ball dribbled through each and every players sticks and legs, coming to a rest just over the goal line 1-0! Later on in the half Saints had an attempt to go 2-0 up: Chris Reid on the left hand side of the 23 rolled it perfectly for Athiq’s wind up and struck it beautifully over the bar for a conversion, had he looked up Chappers had a clear shot on goal, for what would have been his longest goal ever.

Anyway credit to the team grinding out and defending plenty of attacks for a 1-0 win. P4 W3 D1 L0

MOTM: Pete Adey and Scott Hinsley

DOTD: both Max’s: Wilkinson for the physics defying squarial and Foster for a body that always breaks like a twiglet.

PS. A) yes we can

Men’s 3rd XI 2-1 Belper 3rd XI

Goals: Rose 2

Saints 3s went into their second top of the table clash in as many weeks, confident of maintaining their 100% record, at “Fortress Moulton”. However, the opposition, Belper, had other ideas. It was clear from the outset that Belper were not going to roll over, and they were clearly intent on maintaining their own unbeaten record.

Belper set out to play a physical game, trying to force their way towards the Saints goal, but the Saints defence were not troubled, and keeper Joe Cliffe was rarely called into action in the first half. Saints dominated the midfield for much of the first half, but despite excellent work from Toby Ward and Mason Walding in particular, Saints struggled to create any clear cut chances.

When Saints did create some penalty corner opportunities, they were thrown away with a succession of poor push-outs on the dry pitch.

For the second game in succession, the deadlock was eventually broken by a “route one” pass. This time it came from Jason Hillier and was picked up in the “D” by Dan Rose, who rounded the keeper to put Saints into the lead.

The half time team talk could be summarised as “must do better”, and Saints started the second half looking to impose their quick passing game on the opposition. Unfortunately, the second half continued the pattern of the first, with neither side getting close to the opposition “D” very often. However, it was Belper who gradually began to dominate the midfield, and Saints started to struggle to get the ball out of their own half. Eventually the pressure told, and following a series of penalty corners, Belper managed to equalise from a well worked corner routine.

The equaliser sparked an increase in intensity from both sides, not all of it positive. The umpires eventually decided they had seen enough physical challenges, and Belper had a player yellow carded. Unfortunately for Saints, they could not take advantage of the numerical advantage.

Saints continued to press forward, looking for the winning goal, but still couldn’t break down a resilient Belper defence. The game became more open as Belper counter-attacked quickly each time Saints committed men forward, and Phil Bridges was green carded for illegally stopping another potential counter.

Then came a moment that turns games, if not seasons. As Saints committed virtually the entire team forward looking for the winner, Belper broke and had a clear run on goal. Their forward hit a powerful shot from the top of the “D”, beat keeper Cliffe, but the ball ricocheted off the post to safety.

A few minutes later, with time running out, Saints won another penalty corner. Captain Jason Hillier called his team into a huddle: “Get a good push out, lets’ stop it well, and give me a chance to score”. Simon Chambers pushed to Macca, who stopped it and left it for Hillier to shoot – straight into the keeper’s pads! However, Dan Rose reacted quickest and was on hand to rifle it into the roof of the net for the winner, with barely a minute left.

Saints were not pleased with the performance, but if you can play badly and still manage to win…

Next week saints visit Berkswell & Balsall Common and will be looking for a good performance and result against a team who will be in good spirits after their first league win of the season, but Saints know that they need to play better than they did today.

Report by Simon Chambers

Men’s 5th XI 5-5 Men’s 6th XI

Goals for 5s: Jordan Francis 2, Fosbury, Williams, Pibworth

Goals for 6s: Hamish French 3, Hayden Griffiths 2

Both teams were well matched from the off with chances going begging at both ends of the pitch. 6s finally hit the mark first, to be quickly followed by an equalizer from 5s. 6s were defending hard, and counter attacking well, and caught 5s on the break to get ahead again, and again were matched by a follow on score for 5s. A solo run from Hayden Griffiths took 6s into half time with a 3-2 lead. After the break 5s came back strongly and pressed to equalize, but again couldn’t maintain momentum to push their advantage. 6s once again pulled ahead, then 5s finally managed to score two goals in quick succession. 5s tried hard to consolidate their lead but were caught out at the back again by a well worked counter attack and 6s managed to level and hold for the draw.

MOM: Jordan Francis

DOD: Jamie Cochrane

Report by Men’s 5s

Men’s 7th XI 0-8 Beeston 7th XI

Saints 7s travelled to Nottingham to play top of the league Beeston 7s.

The score 8-0 was in fact very complimentary to a Saints team of only 10 players from start to finish. 

Beeston fielded a more experienced team of 11 and 5 substitutes, that simply had a little too much for the 10 saints.

During both halfs, Saints never made it easy for the league leaders on their own patch, however, Beeston made the turnarounds, breaks, overloads and scrappy congestion play pay dividends on 8 occastions only. Having scored 23 goals in 3 games against full strength teams, Saints 10 man team really did make the home side earn this victory.

Man of the match performances from the Saints rookie keeper and back three who kept out and frustrated an experienced Beeston frontline who looked highly threatening to score on every attack. 

Special mentions to James Roffe who made and provided the attacking runs needed to build an attack. Also, Beeston found it hard to get past the experience of Rob Frost who gave a captains performance making the centre field a ‘no go’ zone for the home team, twinned with his attacking partner Soubhik Pal who Beeston didn’t have an answer for. 

Despite the score line, every Saints player gave a performance to be proud of and left the National League club with their heads held high.

Beeston 7s visit Saints at the water base next weekend knowing that the Saints will be fielding a full strength 7s team. 

Fewer goals will be conceded and goals will certainly be scored by the Saints, there will be fireworks!!!!

Above photos from the Men’s 1s game