Reserves v Thirds in the Cup Battle.

Spectators wouldn’t believe it, but the pre-match talk in the reserves changing room was about letting the Thirds come at us, and not taking the game to them. Well, the first ten minutes blew that out of the window, with the Reserves putting in some ‘heavy’ challenges to let the Thirds know that they were in for a match.

There had been plenty of banter before the match, in fact it had been carrying on for weeks with it being postponed twice. Both sides knew they were up for a hard, close game.

The first 40 minutes saw reasonably even possession, but both sides struggled to string more than 5 clean passes together in what was going to prove to be not the cleanest of matches. The Thirds probably had better territory, and numerous corners, but even some Neil Skerry free headers failed to make use of that advantage. Reserves Goal keeper Trent making a number of strong punches and saves in his 6yd box.

The game changing moment fell just before half time. The Reserves pushed hard toward the Thirds goal for a few minutes, resulting in a corner, which was floated to the back post by Jimmy. Marcus Bathan collected the ball and took it to the goal line before squaring a waist high ball across the box. Striker Scott Kerr nailed the right foot volley to perfection and sent it through the crowded box into the net. 1-0 to the Reserves at half time.

The second half was more even in territory and with possession also shared again, only a couple of chances were really created in the last 45. A hard game in the mud the day before started to take its toll on Third team players, and they suffered a couple of injuries late in the match.

The Reserves managed to hold onto their 1 nil advantage, with a great clearing header from Geoff Dodd saving what would have been the equaliser from a Jamie Pegg lob after the bouncing ball held up in time for him to beat Trent with a nicely timed chip.

At times there was definitely ‘no love lost’ between the two sides, but at the end of the day there was too many mates playing against mates for it to become anything nasty.

As Reserves co-coach, I give a huge wrap to our whole team, especially the defence which kept two clean sheets in two days, something we haven’t done, often… actually, probably ever!

Bring on the next stage of the cup, maybe it’ll be the O35’s!!

Good luck to the Thirds for the rest of their competition, hopefully you guys can hold off the challenge from Fencibles and take the title.