Haughley United 2 Crane Sports 2

All square as Cranes comeback to rescue point!

A game of two halves finished in a fair score draw as Haughley dominated proceedings in the first with Cranes dominating the second.

The game started at an extremely fast past with both sides working hard and looking to get on the ball. Cranes first chance came in the 6th minute when their free kick outside the box rattled the post.

4 minutes later, cranes then hit the woodwork for the second from a corner at the back post after some poor Haughley marking. Haughley then weathered another storm after Daley making an absolutely unbelievable save down to his right from a strike from 25 yards.

Haughley however continued to pose threat with the pace of attacking players and winning first and second balls in midfield. From this, Haughley were rewarded on 20 minutes with some excellent play from Andrews winning the ball high up the pitch. Andrews then beat a man and slid a cute through ball to Jamie who was in on goal and smashed underneath the keepers arms for 1-0.

After this Haughley were completely on top. Will was causing the left back all sorts of problems and cranes were second best to everything all over the pitch. Haughley doubled their lead on 33 minutes when from a corner the ball came out to ash who struck an excellent shot which was parried by the keeper and Jamie was first to the ball, leaping up and headed brilliantly over the keeper to loop into the top right hand corner of the net. 2-0.

Jamie nearly made it 3 from a corner which was unfortunately blocked by his own player and Andrews had his header easily saved by the keeper at the back post from a free kick. Cranes had a half chance with a deflected shot just on half time that was saved well by Daley.

Despite the early cranes chances, Haughley throughly deserved the lead at half time with countless attacks, good defending and being 1st and 2nd to everything in midfield. An excellent all round team performance!

HT 2-0

Second half and cranes showed why they are reigning champions and why they are unbeaten in the league for well over a year! They camped in the Haughley half for the whole of the second half and Haughley played into their hands, dropping to defend too quickly. After wave of countless attacks from cranes, on 60 minutes they got back into the game with an unbelievable left footed strike from the striker. Daley got a hand to it but it zoomed straight into the top corner.

Moments later and the cranes midfielder was brought down by a clip in the box and made the most of it by going down theatrically and this deceived the ref as he gave a pen. The resulting midfielder then slotted home nicely to make it 2-2.

After this, it was all cranes with Daley once again making some excellent saves but credit has to go to Haughley for showing huge character to dig deep, stay focused and disciplined and consequently as a team defended superbly and throughly deserved a point based on the first half team performance.

FT 2-2

Player of the match - Daley Young.

Haughley are in action this Saturday against 2nd place Henley Athletic at Haughley playing field