SHEFFIELD RANGERS v ABBEY LANE JFC 11/10/09

[Craig Millward]

SHEFFIELD RANGERS v ABBEY LANE JFC 11/10/09

SHEFFIELD RANGERS (4) v ABBEY LANE JFC (1)
GOALSCORER - KANE TORPEY
MAN OF THE MATCH AWARD - CALLUM DOUGLAS


MATCH REPORT

Due to my computer being dead for nearly two weeks, my apologies for a late match report.

Abbey Lane travelled to Sheffield Rangers with no recognised goalkeeper due to illness and also two players who are still carrying injuries.

With a striker in goal, we patched up the best we could, and set about the game in a great fashion, playing some excellent football. Abbey Lane dominated the opening 20 minutes of the half but amazingly found themselves 2-0 down after thirteen minutes. This was more down to poor marking and a failure to close players down in front of goal. Sheffield Rangers did come on a lot stronger in the last fifteen minutes of the first half, but the score line remained at 2-0.

I explained at half time that we had dominated the game for a long period, but had failed miserably to convert any of our chances. The game was not lost, but we needed to compose ourselves better infront of goal, and the rewards would follow.

The second half kicked off and with only 1 minute on the clock, Sheffield Rangers scored a third goal which saw the scorer clearly three yards offside, but the goal stood.
Abbey Lane battled like hell to try and salvage some thing from the game and on 4 minutes a great run by KANE TORPEY was topped off by a looping shot over the advancing keeper that nestled into the roof of the net. This had fired the lads up and they went on the attack time after time, but just could not get the ball into the back of the net, we hit the post, the crossbar, we hit over, we had shots saved, we also had time to scuff a few shots, but what ever we did, it just wouldn't go in. Abbey Lane really put Rangers under the cosh, but they absorbed the pressure and on 28 minutes broke away to score to take the score to 4-1.

I could not fault the perfromance or the quality of football the lads played as it was first class, but i can fault the finishing, as it was non existant. We need to be more composed in front of goal and relax, as it seems we are panicing and rushing everything.
We had a lot of the game today and really the scoreline doesn't reflect the way we dominated the game in long spells, but again, goals change games, and we are not scoring enough of them to change the game in our favour.