Pre season continued this weekend with the visit of Coalville based club Greenhill YC.  Greenhill are preparing for their first season in the Leicestershire senior league and have been placed immediately into division 1 having won the double 2 years in a row in the north Leicestershire league and completed last season with an unbeaten league record and reached the final of the Leicestershire county cup.  With that in mind we anticipated a very tough game, having played 2 previous teams that are step 8 in Kirton Brickworks and Education FC which finished in losses of 7-1 and 4-1 respectively.   From the kick off the ravens appeared up for it and immediately tried to start playing some nice passing football and working hard closing down the opposition, but it was Greenhill who drew first blood on 6 minutes with a shot from 25 yards that struck the crossbar before bouncing down and in off the returning goalkeeper Shaun Taylor. One of those goals where there's not much that can be done other than forget about it and carry on.  Rushcliffe got back to the task though and continued to play in the same way which was very encouraging.  Greenhill were threatening to break through but the back four of Kennedy, Chitakunye, Melbourne and Eddyshaw in general held firm and any balls that did get through the defensive line were quickly gobbled up by Taylor.   After 17 minutes and following some good link up play on the right between Kennedy and Hill a ball through the middle gave Kohut something to chase and he got onto the ball beating his man and rattling off a shot that beat the keeper but unfortunately couldn't beat the crossbar as it thundered off the woodwork.   By this point Rushcliffe were actually starting to take control of the game against their higher level opposition and this encouraged the ravens further.  On 30 mins Cossey was fouled in the box, an appeal which was waved away by the referee despite it appearing the defender accepted he had commited the foul and moments later a ball down the right found Kohut free with options in the middle but he opted to shoot and it almost worked as he again beat the keeper only to be again denied by the woodwork, this time the post. The game continued to ebb and flow for the remainder of the first stanza with Greenhill still making probing balls that were snuffed out by either the defence or the keeper and the ravens likewise looking threatening going forward but at half time the score remained 1 nil to Greenhill although it could easily have been 3-1 to Rushcliffe on another day.

The second half followed the same path with it being a pretty even game despite the differential  status between the 2 clubs,  and the introduction of substitutes from both sides did nothing to alter the flow of the game which remained pretty level.
Rushcliffe came close on a couple of occasions with a Seals free kick being saved and the busy Kohut and Cossey linking up well but it was Greenhill who extended their lead on 65 mins when a through ball beat the offside trap and the striker duly slotted home.
As Rushcliffe tried to claw it back, Greenhill attempted to catch the ravens on the counter, with one instance causing a strong double save from Taylor to prevent the lead being stretched further.  Rushcliffe were mot deterred and continued to play well and refused to let their heads drop. Tatenda Gutu came close with efforts on a couple of occasions having come on from the bench and Dani Hernandez Gonzalez was looking for that final ball that would put an attacker through on goal.   With 10 minutes of the game to play an effort from outside of the box was parried by the Greenhill keeper and a scuffed clearance landed at the feet of Ben Clark who curled it into the opposite corner as the keeper tried in vain to get back across in time. A lifeline for the ravens, with the deficit reduced back down to a single goal.  Rushcliffe continued to fight hard and again came close to scoring in the dying moments but it wasn't to be and Greenhill held on to record a 2-1 win.  Man of the match was the returning Shaun Taylor, we welcome " Rada " back to the club and look forward to further quality performances.
Ultimately the score was irrelevant in what was a much improved performance and a very good workout against a top quality opponent. We will look to continue the momentum when we face another huge test against Ruddington Reserves from NSL 2 on Wednesday.