4th Team Vs Finchfield 6

Old Wulfs 4ths travelled the short distance to the Royal School to play Finchfields development side.  As you would expect with a Development side 2/3rds of Finchfields side were of secondary school age, with the remaining players comprising of a few old heads and the odd debutant. Finches were more akin to a badger’s team than any other team we had encountered so far in the league. Old Wulfs on the other hand consisted of our regulars with ages ranging from 16 to 67.

OW’s started the game and soon found out that Finchfield were full of confidence and were not afraid to run at and take the game to Old Wulfs.  Finchfield were having the better of play in the early stages and OW’s were struggling to settle into the game.  OW’s found themselves having to do a fair bit of defensive work with keeper Steve Saunders being called into action on more than one occasion preserving the scoreline at 0-0.  Old Wulfs broke the deadlock with Finn finding himself in some space on our left, with Finchfields sweeper beaten and only the keeper to beat Finn calmly slotted the ball home from close range. 1-0 Old Wulfs.  Despite this Finchfield still pressed with a number of their youngsters showing some good technique when up against an Old Wulfs player. It was from such a move that Finchfield earned a penalty corner when Old Wulfs failed to clear their lines. The resulting short was played towards the top of Old Wulf’s D but lacked accuracy, going slightly wide of the intended recipient, which gave just enough time for Ed Thompson running back from the halfway line to win the ball back for Old Wulfs.  Old Wulfs still weren’t playing well and were failing to hold their shape, lacking width which was congesting play.   By contrast our second came on the rare occasion when we did use the width.  Vish received the ball wide on the right just outside Finchfields 23m line, who then advanced with the ball before putting an accurate square ball across the D which was met by Lewis, who sweep the ball into the goal to the left of their keeper from around 6m out. 

HT 2-0

Finchfield restarted the game and it wasn’t long before they showed their determination to get some reward for the efforts, determination and individual skill shown by some of their younger players. Again on more than one occasion keeper Steve was called into action with his now customary calmness and excellent placement of his kicks, to prevent Finchfield from finding the back of our net.  With 16 minutes of the second half gone and Old Wulfs still not playing to their ability OW’s were at times struggling to make any headway, Finches pulled a goal back from a short corner when the ball eluded both the keeper and defender on the post.  Finches finding themselves back in the game continued to push and could have equalised a few minutes later when a through ball found one of their players free near our right post, the resulting shot going just wide. Old Wulfs continued to Huff and Puff but still not firing on all cylinders.  Ow’s were looking for a third goal to hopefully make the game safe, which they did with about 4 minutes remaining. Vish again found himself on the right and having advanced towards the goal line put in a firm shot from the tightest of angles which found the back of the net.

FT 3-1 win.

Scorers: Finn Townsend 1, Lewis Brain 1, Vish Kumar 1.

Players MOM: Vote was shared across 4 players this week. With Vish Kumar just pipping Goal Keeper Steve Saunders to the award. Big Thank you to Steve for donning the keepers kit after a long absence. It was like he had never been away.

Post Match Quote: “They say that great teams are those who grind out results when not playing well”.

I will leave the rest to you.