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In our final group match in the Supp Cup, the boys lined up at home to face a very strong Parkwyddn side. And although the Predators had lost an earlier cup game to Swinton Panthers, I fully expected us to be severely tested in this encounter.
Therefore, you can imagine my surprise when less than a minute in to the game we drew first blood! Stewart picked the ball up in central midfield and quickly played a pass over to the right and in behind their left back. If anything their left back seemed to have the pass under control but an ever persistent and confident Josh, took him on, stole the ball, and delivered a magnificent cross in to the Parkwyddn penalty area. Oscar met the cross first time, with his head, to absolutely slam it in to the keeper's far corner. What a beauty of a goal and what was especially pleasing about it was that it was a good team goal involving 3 of our players.
Often this season, we've relied on the individual brilliance of one or two people, particularly Stewart, and therefore it was gratifying to see some of the boys link up well and let the ball do the work!
As the game wore on though, we started to find ourselves under a lot of intense pressure. I don't know how many corners we conceded, but with Jack and the back 3 working tremendously hard, we look destined to hang on to our 1-0 lead at least to half time.
However, it wasn't to be and with seconds to go to the interval we were finally breached with what has to be one of the ugliest, scruffiest goals we've ever let in.
To be fair to Parkwyddn though, they deserved the equaliser as they had us totally pinned back.
In the second half, I felt we played a bit better and definitely created some decent chances. On a better day we might have scored from one of them but once again Parkwyddn had most of the ball and it was no surprise that they eventually took the lead with about 10 minutes to go.
If we thought their leveller was bad, their 2nd was even more scandalous, with our boys all stopping because we'd assumed that the ball had gone out of play for a goal kick to us. Unfortunately it hadn't and the Predators exploited our dithering to go 1-2 up.
Despite a couple of good chances for us to equalise, in the final moments of the game, we let in a 3rd, probably because we were chasing the match and had moved to 2 at the back.
Still ultimately, I've no quarrel with the result, the Predators deserved to win. What I would say though, is that, the scoreline was harsh on us and we defended exceptionally well. It was only really 2 absolute clangers that cost us the match, plus arguably a lenient reffing decision when Eddie was barged/pushed/bundled to the ground just before Parkwyddn made it 1-1.
In summary, it was a very taxing game but a brilliant experience for the boys. A good lesson in bedding in and defending as a team against a very good side. MOTM went to Jack for some wonderful saves.
In terms of the Supp Cup group, as I explained to the boys, we've played our 5 games and we've done all that we can do.
We won 4 out of the 5 and with being awarded the points for Maccabi Warriors fielding unregistered players, we got to 15 points. For that achievement alone, I'm so proud of our boys!
Therefore, we now sit top of the table and have to wait for the other games to be played in the group.
As it stands, we'll either finish 1st or 2nd in the group and should therefore get to the final, as the final will be between the teams who finish 1st and 2nd in the group.
The only problem is that, mathematically, there's a chance that 3 teams could finish the group on 15 points. In that scenario I imagine there'll have to be some kind of play off system put in to place.
So as I said to the boys, we're not in the final, we just have to wait and see, we've done as much as we can do and we've done very well.
Next we can return to league action. We have 3 games in the league to play and we're currently 4th but we have a chance of finishing 3rd in the division. Having said that we have a chance of finishing 5th too. Therefore, let's take the opportunity to have a go and finish as high as we can.
Final Score:
Tornadoes 1 - 3 Parkwyddn Predators