Match Photos
Gresley Rovers vs Boldmere St Michael's
Saturday we faced our bogie team and cup final opposition at home in the league, the team in question Boldmere St Michael's.
This was the sixth meeting between the clubs in my 3 years at Gresley and we hadn't won so much as a corner never mind a game in the past, so I was hoping that we could put the record straight to some degree at the weekend.
It's always a tricky one playing a team in the league so close to playing them in a cup final, because your never sure what team your going to playing against, is it their strongest in a bid to win, and win well and scare the life out of you for the final or do they play it down and bring their second string team hoping to scrape a result but lull you in to a false sense of security for the final, what ever their tactics are if we play as we did on Saturday we'll be ready for them.
Saturday was probably one of the biggest games for us this season so far, definitely as far as a guide as to where we are at the moment.
The lads walked out onto the pitch on Saturday with a sense of belief, with a sense of pride and right from the off they gave it their all. Right from the back to the front we dominated, Perry won every header, Guiney controlled the tempo and Shaky and Brev hit the channels time and time again with great accuracy, not to mention Mr Brevitt's excellent headed goal.
Silk and Steel played their part, Pryce ran at them and asked the question, Barker yet again dazzled with his ability, Branchy picked up were he left off in great style and Liam led the line with finesse, poor old Bradders didn't see much of the ball in first half.
Here comes the one and only moan - we came in at half time having completely dominated the game and being 1 nil up, but and here it comes it should have been at least 4, and this if we do not address it will be our undoing.
In the second half we came out expecting more from the league leaders, but really it didn't come. Ok they equalised 7 minutes into the 2nd half, but that was their lot. We controlled the game as we had in the 1st half, was it us not letting them to play?
I made substitutions in the 2nd half, which saw Greg Smith replace the injured Zak Jackson and Ryan Yearsley replace Todd Perry. Both performed fantastically when they were introduced especially Smith with his showboat antics. They both bought an extra edge to our game creating more chances for us, that we duly missed, to my mind we missed another 3 good chances in the 2nd half, we're going to have to start taking them lads, and when we do some team is going to get tanked.
Saturday finished 1-1 when I believe we deserved the win, our first against them in a long time, I guess we'll have to wait for the cup final for the first win against them.
On a closing note I'd like to thank all the players for their great response and attitude at the weekend it seems that the team spirit and belief has returned, long may it stay.
Simon Van-de-Broucke
Reserve Team Manager
