Several heavy showers throughout the day turned Anderson Park into a wet and slippery pitch, but the good grass cover helped keep the ground in good enough shape for a useful contest. Once again several players were out with Diego, Matt, Ricky, Drew & Paul all unavailable. Rovers started with Luke in goals, Chris sweeping, James & Daniel as twin Central Defenders, Anthony C. & Steve as Right & Left wing-backs respectively, Petar, Michael & Connor were in midfield, with Johnny & Andrew up forward. Lucas and 4 Reserve players were on the pine (Matt, Nick, Anthony & Luca).
The game commenced in heavy rain and the view from the grandstand was very comfortable. The ball was travelling from end to end with Whitehorse content to push forwards to set up the offside trap as often as possible. The offside occurred fairly regularly when Rovers pushed forwards but our foot passing was far superior and this gave us quite a few shots on goal. John was quick to get onto a loose ball 20 metres out and put the ball over the keepers head with the outside of his right foot. Whitehorse gained several free kicks but their attempts were met with Chris or Luke in the way or shots way off target. Our defense of Luke, Chris, Daniel, James & Steve were more than a match for any forward moves although we did have a couple of nervous back passes that a better team may have punished. In the midfield Michael was controlling the game at will with little opposition and the forwards had a few more opportunities but John, Connor & Anthony (reserves) all had shots that the keeper saved comfortably.
Half-time score: Rovers 1 : Whitehorse 0
Whitehorse started the second half with several good runs forward, showing plenty of pace and agility in the wet as more rain tumbled down. How sweet it sounded on the tin roof! Really they should have scored at least one goal as our defense cracked open but did not have the shooters to finish off. Rovers foot passing to unmarked players was increasingly evident as Rovers opened the game up more and soon had another goal after Luca beat two in the left hand corner, passed to John who got around a couple and shot truly to extinguish any hope Whitehorse had. The only horse in the race after this was a yellow and green one. Rovers continued to press and shortly after Connor to John who put in a lovely through ball to the feet of Andrew who banged in another goal to keep the home crowd clapping.
The coach then pulled his masterstroke of the season, allowing the reserve keeper on and Luke to go forwards. Luke was soon in the play and with a few minutes to go John and Luke swarmed forwards where some unplanned passing allowed Luke to put in a lob over the keeper who was out of goals as usual. The ball sailed directly into the centre of the net giving Luke a dream goal to finish the game off. Luke really should have got a green card for violating the keepers’ unwritten law, “don’t kick goals against your brethren!” A green card means – go and do it again!
Scores at full-time: Rovers 4 : Whitehorse 0
Thursday, 19 August 2010
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