Preston Manor Royals 1 vs 2 Welcroft Park Rangers

Not the result expected on paper having beaten our opponents on the two previous visits to their home ground.

However we made a strong start just failing to break through the high defensive line of our opponents on numerous occasions in the first 15 minutes only to be flagged offside.

We finally opened the scoring with a delightful piece of playb down our right flank resulting in a cross from Sam Copeland into the path of Val Jingwa who squared it to Stiven Lopez who slotted the ball in with his first touch. 10/10.

Having produced such a clinical passage of play it was slightly disappointing to then at times resort to ‘frantic football’.

Unfortunately this phase caused us to concede an own goal after 30 minutes which resulted in us being level at half time.

One of our best passages of play resulted in a superbly executed far post headed goal by Val from a Stiven cross only to be disallowed by the referee after the linesman flag.

The second half resulted in our opponents showing more desire to win and in doing so scored a second were we had more than one opportunity to clear the ball from our area.

With 5 league games and two CUPS remaining it is essential we pull together and be more resilient as a team rather than as individuals.

If you watch the match highlights you will see that our youngest team member covered more ground and made more interceptions than anyone else.

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”