Mountains vs BUFC C Match Report

It was an unseasonably hot day up in the Mountains for the first game of the season, as the newly-promoted Barnstoneworth 35Cs took to the field once more.

The tone of the match was unfortunately set within the first couple of minutes when GK Beni was harshly penalised for a decisive edge of the box clearance that put the ball in row C and their attacker in the trees.  This was swiftly followed by several more decisions going against us but thanks to some strong defensive work we weathered the pressure.  It took us a while to get organised and for much of the first period we were on the defensive.  Down the other end we only had a couple of chances in the first half, the best of which was from Jase, rising like a mature salmon at the far post to direct a great header at the bottom corner, only to have it tipped round the post.  The ref got this wrong as well but thanks to the sportsmanship of the Mountains players we did get the corner.  Overall we were a little fortunate to go into half time at nil nil.

The second half was a different story. We came out strongly and threatened several times, and for the first 15min of the half we looked like scoring.  Unfortunately the football gods were not smiling on us, and they grabbed a lucky one very much against the run of play, knocking in a rebound after a heroic first save / high speed deflection off the face from Beni.  Although we did finally get a couple of decisions in the second half, the balance still went against us, including several dodgy offsides, the worst of which should have allowed Justin’s jink round the defender and tap-in to stand.  One can’t help but wonder about the ref’s eyesight, especially as he made our wall stand about 30 yards away for their (plentiful) free kicks.  Despite this we pressed hard, Scott earning himself a yellow card in the process (for poorly defined reasons), and Jase lucky to avoid one for his ‘gentleman’s nudges’ at left back, but it was not to be, the final frustration of the day coming when Tim hit the crossbar…of an open goal…with three minutes to go…(sorry mate)

Overall we can take some positives out of the second half in particular from a game which always felt like it would be decided by the odd goal.  Man of the Match went deservedly to Beni for heroics between the sticks, followed closely by Justin and Della.  Our thanks to Pierre and Nigel for graciously volunteering to sit out. Perhaps some form of animal sacrifice would be appropriate before next week’s game back on home turf against Kariong…

#TheLegendContinues(butfaltersslightly)

Mountains 1 – BUFC C 0