Brilliant Effort

Ever since we made this 1/2 final we knew numbers were not going to be great, but as the tie drew closer the situation got progressively worse until yesterday we were down to 10 men including an injured Zammo who was putting it on the line for the club.

For the first time in over a decade and only the 3rd time in our history we started without the full compliment and ended the game with 8 men plus Gilo as a passenger after Zam's injury forced him off with a quarter of the game to play.

We went behind inside 2 minutes to an audacious long ranger, but were level on 5 as Joey notched his 8th header of the season after Zam had flicked on Wicksy's throw.

After this we contained JB pretty well with largely superb defensive organisation, but eventually they went ahead agin from a corner. The ball looked to have struck a JB arm on route to a backpost tap in, but it was a tough one for the officials to give.

We nearly levelled when a quick free kick from Coxy forced a desperate save, but JB extended their lead before the interval.

Our shape did not change in the second half and again we were defending with real gusto, but eventually their left winger made it 4-1 with a clinical finish.

It went from bad to worse with just over 20 to go as Zam's race was run and just after he had left the pitch Gilo buckled his ankle to leave us effectively with 8 men.

JB made it 5 with a fine header.

We actually finished the game strongly, forcing their keeper into a couple of saves and got our reward late on as Frosty exchanged passes with Albi before rattling a fine finish into the bottom corner from just inside the box.

Baulds made 2 or 3 excellent saves in the second half (thankyou again for deputising), but on the whole we did a brilliant job against a top team who had a full 16 to choose from.

In the end the result did not matter to us. We were only proud of a superb effort when really up against it. Our first loss in 2019 ended an immense winning run. This however did not feel like a loss.

MoM: Frosty & Joey - even without the full compliment we still managed to cause problems in attack and that was largely down to the contribution of these two. Both deserved their goals. In all honesty though I'm just full of praise for everyone in our colours this morning.

Thanks to Luca for supporting.