Missing a key player in Hans, and playing on a schools pitch not up to the usual college standard (although by no means as bad as Hills Road last year!), this was always looking like a toughie. The game was scrappy, with moments of brilliance (particularly down the left side, with Richard, James or Shaun and Aneil combining occasionally - one of these moves was finished nicely by Ian to give Emma a lead.
Emma had a couple more decent chances, notably when Tom broke clear, but Emma's shooting boots had been left at home.
Unfortunately Long Road scored two soft goals in the remainder of the half, one with Seb showing his lack of keeping practice, coming out and being beaten by the Long Road striker; the other somehow squeezing between Seb, Mike and Rich from the side of the 6 yard box. So 2-1 Long Road at half time, where a draw would have been fair.
Emma came out strongly at the start of the second half, and created many half-chances; none came to anything however. When James put away a scrappy headed goal, at the second attempt, to make it 2-2, Emma found their belief again. Strangely, though, they lost coherence and Long Road started getting more of the ball in midfield. When Seb was beaten to the ball again for 3-2 you could see it was going to be one of those days. Two more goals went in at the end of an injury-affected second half, putting a thouroughly flattering gloss on the score for Long Road. Emma's unbeaten run had come to a close.
Team: Seb Neilson
Richard Smith (?, 75), Adam Stevens (Tom R 80), Mike Henson, Gaz Sumner
James ? (Shaun ?, h-t), Kavin Wadhar, Tom Hopwood (Bobby ?, ?), Tom Richardson (Chris Jones, 65)
Aneil Malhotra, Ian Saunders
Goals: Saunders 25, James 60
League table:
Team |
PL |
W |
D |
L |
GF |
GA |
GD |
PTS |
APU II |
5 |
4 |
1 |
0 |
21 |
7 |
14 |
13 |
Long Road III |
3 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
13 |
5 |
8 |
9 |
Emmanuel II |
4 |
3 |
0 |
1 |
11 |
7 |
4 |
9 |
Corpus |
4 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
18 |
10 |
8 |
6 |
Jesus II |
4 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
9 |
8 |
1 |
4 |
Caius II |
2 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
4 |
3 |
1 |
3 |
Churchill II |
4 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
9 |
17 |
-8 |
3 |
St. Catz II |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
5 |
-5 |
0 |
Trinity II |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
2 |
11 |
-9 |
0 |
Queens II |
2 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
16 |
-14 |
0 |