After six weeks without a game due to the weather, this may have come down to which team had remembered the most about how to play football.
After ten seconds, we were picking the ball out of the back of the net after we gave the ball away at kick off and our defence didn’t react in time to the Delaval attack. Spartans soon reorganised themselves, but another defensive error that left a Delaval player unmarked in a dangerous area led to a second. Going into the second quarter, Spartans came into the game and started to be more dominant which led to a goal from Besty. A good performance in the third quarter saw us going into the last one of the game 2-1 down with every chance of coming back for a result. But a great save that dropped just short of the goal line saw a Delaval boot get there first to put us 3-1 down. Substitutions were made to get our strongest attacking line up back on the field and we pushed forward with some great passing football that kept their keeper busy as well as hitting the “woodwork”, but we just couldn’t get a goal.
Besty worked his socks off in the centre of midfield and picked up the MoM and Daniel, who had three quarters in goal and made some great brave saves picked up the coach’s player.
But for the defensive errors in the first quarter and some intervention from the bar later in the match, this could have been a different result. As one of the parents said as we came away at the end, the luck is not with us this season and this is another match that has shown that.