An under strength Emerald win with ease

Even though Emerald fielded an under strength side, we still managed to score three goals, Ale our captain scored the first with a beautiful link up between himself, Long and Marc, resulting in a trademark finish, then a spectacular narrow angled goal coming from Henrik (the Danish one), who had only been on the pitch 5 mins, and finally a superb finish by Marc!

Thierry managed to keep an Emerald clean sheet despite a concerted effort from Barry Piper to wrong foot him, and try his hardest to score a spectacular back pass own goal! Somehow Thierry pulled off an amazing save and kept the ball out of our own goal by scooping it off the line! Thankfully this was the closest Japan/Barry came to scoring!

Our back line played very well, and were rarely challenged by the Japanese strikers, particular mention to Chris Brady and Simon Maynard who both had excellent games not only in defence, but also in making great runs into the Japanese goal area!

Overall a very solid performance, and in particular Long had a great game as he deputised in central midfield with Ale, and Henrik made a huge difference with his speed by terrorising the Japanese defence on several occasions. Marc was as reliable as always, and with his superb first touch was able to have a hand in Ale's goal as well as scoring one for himself!

Man of the match was a difficult call, having asked a few of our players at the end of the game, it was a close call between Chris Brady, Simon Maynard and Ale! But after some discussion we went with Ale as without his masterclass in midfield we would not have controlled the game as we did, plus he scored a great goal!

The Japanese as always were good sportsman, and played a clean game, and I guess with the absence of Giles or Alan we had no yellow cards! Some of the refereeing decisions were strange particularly the offside calls.

Anyway a big thank you to all that turned up on Easter Sunday and gave their all! Much appreciated! In particular a big thank you to the England Emerald players who had another game straight after the Emerald match, Tim, Chris, Barry and Marc! Chris ended up playing 90 mins in both games!

Next up are the Irish, which will be a bruising encounter based on recent reports!

Cheers!

David