Another Classic

Having shared 9 goals a week ago it was hardly unsurprising that this was another goalfest. Thankfully we emerged victorious on the lovely surface at Royal Holloway.

In team news Luca Mortellaro and Tom Frost made their first appearances of the season, Paul Grills made his debut and Harri Elliott kindly went in goal as an injury ruled him out from playing on pitch.

Unlike last week, we started well here and were passing it around nicely until we fell behind inside 10 minutes for the 3rd game running. We decided in the changing room that 3 players were of equal blame for this one. Definitely true.

Once again we responded to the early setback really well and dominated the next 15 minutes, popping the ball around well in the process. Grouty hit the bar twice as we pushed for the equaliser. The first saw him nearly finish off a superb move with a curler from the outside of the box and the second their keeper turned his header from Gilo's corner onto the underside of the bar.

On 21 minutes we got the goal we deserved. Grouty found Carter on the edge of the box and when he was fouled the ball rolled to Luca who curled a beauty past the keeper from 20 yards out. Good refereeing saw the advantage rule play out perfectly.

A few minutes later Frosty split the defence with a killer pass to Carter who finished through the keeper's legs for his 5th of the season.

Staines changed their shape on the half hour mark and grew into the game. This coupled with a spell of slack passing saw them equalise on 39 minutes.

9 minutes into the second half Paul broke down the left and his cross was only cleared to Carter who curled low into the corner via a slight deflection to maintain his incredible early run of averaging 2 goals a game.

Our hosts equalised again 10 minutes later following some really poor marking at a set piece.

Like a week ago this could now have gone either way. With 15 minutes remaining we got ourselves back in front. Grouty surged down the left hand side with his cross falling to Carter. He delivered to the back post for Luca who was afforded too much time to bring the ball down, beat his man and then somehow find an angle to beat the keeper at his near post.

We had some defending to do late on, but despite Staines' pressure they were unable to create the chance required to equalise.

Staines are a good team who are definitely going to pick up results soon so completing the double over them is no mean feat. We are defending better than the scorelines suggest, although it would be nice to stop giving teams a goal head start early on! Attacking wise we look capable of scoring lots of goals and hopefully today was a glimpse of how we can play in the final third.

MoM: Luca - two quality goals, quality in possession and hard working. A fine start to his season.

Huge thanks to Rory for running the line and to Harwood, Jack and Luigi for the support.