3rd Team Vs Wednesbury

After playing the league leaders last week this week we made the short trip to play 2nd placed Wednesbury. The home team lined up with with a side probably 15-20 years a man younger than ours.

The home side started well playing some good passing hockey, but Old Wulfs worked hard to frustrate them. Midway through the first half Wednesbury made the breakthrough. The spell following the goal brought Old Wulfs best spell of the game. The midfield started finding the skipper on a regular basis and we won a couple of short corners. Unfortunately our short corner routine fell foul of the slippy pitch.

We continued to press and the skipper had a couple of half chances saved by the keeper. Wednesbury started to get sloppy with their passing and a defensive clearance was intercepted by the skipper who ran at the defence, with two defenders converging and the keeper onrushing the skippers shot struck one defender lifted onto the knee of the other defender and slid past the unlucky keeper.

Old Wulfs continued to have good possession around the opposition D, With the Upton Aerial a constant threat. Wednesbury were rattled and started to argue amongst themselves, their skipper having to intervene in an argument over a short corner. Tempers were not helped by a collision between our keeper Dillworth and an onrushing attacker.

The 2nd half was a particularly niggly affair with the umpires constantly having to interrupt play. Wednesbury seemed be rattled by Upton and Jones breaking up their play. The game became less about passing and more about tackling aggression.

Wednesbury eventually got their passing game back together and finally got past the dogged Old Wulfs defence. Two goals in the final quarter put Wednesbury back into control.

Old Wulfs didn't give up though, Upton went close from a short corner. The skipper found himself clean on goal, he evaded the last defender and avoided the onrushing skipper to feed Sheldon, his goalbound shot/cross found the foot of the skipper.

The niggly nature of the game continued with an attempted rugby tackle on Upton failing to prompt the the umpires into action (although the aggressor did have to leave the pitch injured). Wednesbury conceded a needless short corner from a foul in the corner of the pitch. Upton made them pay by scoring our 2nd goal.

Unfortunately we didn't have a chance to make a further chance and fell 3-2.

After the final whistle one of the home players managed to get himself a yellow card for thanking Old Wulfs for the game of Rugby.

Overall a thoroughly committed performance from Old Wulfs, if we show this attitude for the rest of the season we will pick up more points.

Man of the Match - Dillworth in goal had a busy day,the defence were immense, The skipper was dangerous in spells upfront, the midfield worked a shift and a half. However I'll have to give it to Upton for his goal and an excellent performance despite being targeted by the opposition.