Men's 1s Match Report 21st September

HWHC: 3 vs East Grinstead: 1

This week’s pre-game meeting was notable for 4 shirts being handed over to the H&W Premier League debutants: Matt, Michael, Ted and Tim. Hope that it is one of a great many, and enjoyable, games with the club. Saturday was a good start to the season. After last year’s defeat, it was important to put that right with a decent 3-1 win. It could easily have been more. Jolyon got into good positions early in the game and got two shots at goal, one requiring a top save from EG’s ‘keeper.

In my day job, I spend time looking at data to spot patterns and trends. There is one emerging from the last two games which is particularly pleasing – 80% of shots on target in the previous game and 100% of shots on target in this game, according to Paul’s stats. Long may this continue. However, the consequence is that the ‘get jacked quick’ club membership is suffering! The result this weekend was 3 fields goals with three different scorers. Another developing trend is Matt G-B’s customary, yellow card in the league opening game.

The defensive midfielders were really noticeable, when building out of defence and collapsing the opponent’s press into the centre, opening channels wide to pass the ball through. The team didn’t manage this very often last season. Also, the DMs were noticeable for carrying the ball from high transfers into the circle. One goal came from Dale carrying the ball past/through two defenders, offloading to Crowson who spun the ball towards goal for Kei to put his indoor skills to good use scoring. Later in the game, Crowson (or #8 Tim Cross- according to the YouTube feed) scored one of his own. Between these two goals Josh Kelly scored to keep his scoring streak going.

To quote Rhett, “We’ve got TRC in our team, we’ve got TRC in our team….”. A number of world class saves made sure that EG got nothing more in the game than their one early goal. This earned a unanimous MOM!