Perhaps this is our season in a nutshell: we finally had a decent squad available, including the returning Ryan - but by 25 minutes he was our only sub as 2 more injuries struck and, again, we had to dig deep to get something from a game. And the league table doesn't quite tell the whole story about Old Ruts: with their 1sts season pretty much over, they were bolstered by a couple of standout players.
After a tight opening, we had the first sniff and it was all made by Joe: the ball came out to him on the edge of the box and his volley was pushed over the bar by their keeper. Baba was getting some joy down the left without us creating a real opening, until Jack W put in a tackle that inadvertently put Jeremy clear, but he tried to cross rather than shoot and the chance was wasted.
We were looking solid at the back, but a slip by Adam saw their quick striker in - Gary, however, stood up the task. Then came those injuries, Tom and Boorman forced off, and the changes probably had an impact as the restructured midfield didn’t pick up a runner who got in ahead of Joe to ram home.
The rest of the half saw us do OK, but that was all - something the gaffer rammed home at HT as everyone was perhaps too comfortable. The second half saw us control proceedings, without ever looking like getting that equaliser. The gaffer rolled the dice with 20 to go, going more attacking and bringing Ryan back into the fold, and it had an impact as we started getting in more.
The first of those saw Ben break the offside trap and coolly steer the ball under the advancing keeper. It was now our game and we kept plugging away, before another through ball saw Jeremy clobbered (not for the first time) by one of their 1st teamers (who made a big difference to their defence) in a 50-50 in the box - and the ref pointed to the spot. Darren kept calm during the protestations to send the keeper the wrong way.
We then saw out the last couple of minutes comfortably to see home an important win which banishes any thoughts of getting dragged into a battle at the bottom. We are now 4th, with 4 games to go, so we have a chance to end the season on a high.

GOALS: Ben Sinclair, Darren Smith