Lockleaze Community First 3 vs 3 Thornbury Town Reserves

A day that was great and ended slightly sour. We had a great side out for our 3rd round GFA clash v Thornbury Town after last weeks first win in the league. And so this game I wanted to go about things slightly different. The first thing was getting together slightly earlier so the team could go out and train and warm up early, then back into the warm changing rooms for a full briefing from myself and Mr D . So everyone is on the same wave length. We kick off and straight away take command of the game with great passing and movement. We are 2-0 up in a short time and I am amazed at the way we are playing and tackling is fierce but fair. But once again we go back to our old ways and allow our opponents back into the game. Thornbury with their very young squad started to get back at us and within no time it was all equal to 2-2. Suddenly finding ourselves looking to lose this game, we had to change things slightly and I risked putting on some fresh legs. We score another screamer and we are in front again. The clock was ticking and everything was going our way until 6 minutes before the end when Thornbury scored the equaliser which should have been off side. This annoyed our players and then to cap it all a freak accident saw Ryan fracture his arm. So to penalties and we go out 3-2.

So to the conclusion.

We played superbly well for large parts of the game but just a couple of things to pick up on. We are still not marking players as I asked. Some phases we allowed Thornbury to go through the mid field unchallenged far to often. And finally we need to pick our passes carefully and not try to take on our opponents team single handed.

But on the whole we played better than the week before and you should take this onboard as a positive. Well done to all of you.

Moving on to next Sat we are playing Filton Athletic Res. This is a local derby against a team we have struggled against in the past. But saying this with our current team I honestly think we can beat them. I do have a Lockleaze player coming back from long term injury who has been working on his fitness and is ready to come into the team for this game. His name is Jack Smith and played for this team for a couple of seasons before going back to Oxford where he currently lives.

I am also going to allow the debut of Henry Jones who has been waiting in the wings for his chance.

Do not forget to answer availability for next Saturday which will be the final game of 2019.