A really poor performance and a very disappointing result.
They were fast out of the blocks and it was a good seven minutes before we got into our stride. There were a couple of decent moments by Longman at LWB and Casper looked busy. But there were many who were just not at the races. Our best chance came from a through ball in the inside left position and Watmore chased after it. It looked as if he had let it run too far but he hit it with the outside of his right foot towards the near post and it hit the keeper and went wide. They dominated possession and it was no surprise that they took the lead, albeit in a fortunate turn of events. The ball was knocked into our box and their attacker just got the wrong side of Cooper who tugged at his shirt. Initially the ref played on but the lino obviously spotted the offence and the ref call the play back and gave them a penalty. Lowe smashed it him and Bart had no chance and it was 1-0 to them. We struggled to get back into it and as hard as we tried the worse it got. When all else failed the ref came to their rescue with copious free kicks when a breath of fresh air blew them over. It got so ridiculous that when he eventually gave us a free kick the crowd cheered. Surely after half time things must change and get better.
GR made two subs taking off Longman and BNC and bringing on Esse and Joe. Esse played wide left and Joe played left back. For about five minutes we had more energy and urgency. Rab missed a couple of half decent chances but then they came back into it. A run through the middle from Grimes opened up a space for a shot and his speculative effort squirmed under Bart’s body for 2-0..We huffed and puffed and Emakhu came on to replace a tiring Campbell. Esse moved into the middle with Watmore coming right and Emakhu playing left. A poor touch in the middle from Esse put their midfielder in who worked the ball to the right. The cross came in and an unmarked attacker nodded it in for 3-0. GR replaced Murray for Danny and Sav came on for Flem. It made little difference and when the board went up with eight minutes of added time there were collective groans around the stadium and the inevitable shouts about the quality of GR’s football it was poor.
Bart could do little about the first and third goal but the second seemed to squirm under his body. BNC was anonymous and Longman had a couple of moments early on but then faded. Cooper had a blip for their penalty, Leonard was OK and Murray similar. Casper looked busy and tried hard but Campbell was poor. Flem was similar but Watmore had some moments which showed some skills. Rab got the award for the poorest show of the afternoon and I could see no good reason for keeping him on the pitch. Nothing stuck, his runs and headers were poor and what chances he had were way off target.
All in all it was a miserable and frustrating afternoon and a really disappointing result There was a collective lack of urgency in all areas on the park. GR should hang his head in shame. The only Ray of light was I spoke to Bradshaw in the car park and he said he would be back next week.
They were fast out of the blocks and it was a good seven minutes before we got into our stride. There were a couple of decent moments by Longman at LWB and Casper looked busy. But there were many who were just not at the races. Our best chance came from a through ball in the inside left position and Watmore chased after it. It looked as if he had let it run too far but he hit it with the outside of his right foot towards the near post and it hit the keeper and went wide. They dominated possession and it was no surprise that they took the lead, albeit in a fortunate turn of events. The ball was knocked into our box and their attacker just got the wrong side of Cooper who tugged at his shirt. Initially the ref played on but the lino obviously spotted the offence and the ref call the play back and gave them a penalty. Lowe smashed it him and Bart had no chance and it was 1-0 to them. We struggled to get back into it and as hard as we tried the worse it got. When all else failed the ref came to their rescue with copious free kicks when a breath of fresh air blew them over. It got so ridiculous that when he eventually gave us a free kick the crowd cheered. Surely after half time things must change and get better.
GR made two subs taking off Longman and BNC and bringing on Esse and Joe. Esse played wide left and Joe played left back. For about five minutes we had more energy and urgency. Rab missed a couple of half decent chances but then they came back into it. A run through the middle from Grimes opened up a space for a shot and his speculative effort squirmed under Bart’s body for 2-0..We huffed and puffed and Emakhu came on to replace a tiring Campbell. Esse moved into the middle with Watmore coming right and Emakhu playing left. A poor touch in the middle from Esse put their midfielder in who worked the ball to the right. The cross came in and an unmarked attacker nodded it in for 3-0. GR replaced Murray for Danny and Sav came on for Flem. It made little difference and when the board went up with eight minutes of added time there were collective groans around the stadium and the inevitable shouts about the quality of GR’s football it was poor.
Bart could do little about the first and third goal but the second seemed to squirm under his body. BNC was anonymous and Longman had a couple of moments early on but then faded. Cooper had a blip for their penalty, Leonard was OK and Murray similar. Casper looked busy and tried hard but Campbell was poor. Flem was similar but Watmore had some moments which showed some skills. Rab got the award for the poorest show of the afternoon and I could see no good reason for keeping him on the pitch. Nothing stuck, his runs and headers were poor and what chances he had were way off target.
All in all it was a miserable and frustrating afternoon and a really disappointing result There was a collective lack of urgency in all areas on the park. GR should hang his head in shame. The only Ray of light was I spoke to Bradshaw in the car park and he said he would be back next week.