Barnstoneworth B South vs Ourimbah Report

Another trip up to Bloodtree which has become quite the happy hunting ground for us over the last few seasons. Despite their position on the ladder, we know Ourimbah are capable of playing good footy on their day. They had had a couple of good results recently and it was only two seasons back they put 5 on us one dark afternoon at Ourimbah!! Again we found ourselves with only 11 available and no referee assigned – both these issues being overcome with the forfeit of the 45a’s who were scheduled to play on the adjacent field, allowing us to pinch the ref and James McLaren for our subs bench. Cheers guys!!

It started as a pretty even contest until Jimmy O put our first one away after around 20 mins. From there we started to get on top but Ourimbah had a chance to equalise when they were awarded the most bizarre of penalty decisions. The penalty strike was the second worst I’ve ever seen but somehow manger to creep underneath a diving Reido for what we all thought was the equaliser. However, the ref decided Ourimbah had encroached, issued a yellow card and ordered the penalty be retaken. Leeroy politely gave plenty of instruction to their penalty taker on exactly how to get the ball off the ground at least. This time the strike was easily the worst penalty seen (in any grade of football – big call when we’ve just watched the Italians I realise!!) and Reid easily bent down to pick it up at his feet. From there they lost their way and it was long before their defender hammered home a lovely Kev Haines cross from the right to give us a lead of 2-0. We should’ve had a penalty of our own late in the half when the ball was caught, then dropped by an opponent. Nobody moved, the whistle went, and the ref marched us all back around 5 meters to “where the handball occurred’ which, to the amusement of both sides, happened to be the first blade of grass outside the penalty area. Wtf???? 2-0 at halftime.

The second half was all Barnstoneworth – At times it was more art than football. We created a thousand opportunities and the score quite easily could’ve been 10. Probably should’ve been. Maybe more. Jules grabbed a late goal nutmegging the keeper with a cheeky finish. The final score of 3-0 keeps us in the hunt for a top two finish. While this wasn’t the hardest of challenges it was great for our side to play some quality football with a massive game next week against The Entrance. Our player of the year points are being hidden for the remainder of the season – great games from Brett Abrahams and Jon Pallot at the back and Jimmy O up front were a highlight. A big shout out again to James McLaren for helping us out more than adequately in defence.

Goals: Jimmy O, Jules