Man of the Match: Liam Hayes. Match Report: Andy Fenn

Challenging to write, after being so far away from most of the action!

So this weeks saga starts all the way back at Monday night 8s, 9s, 10s, training. Taking Fenn most Jr along was an opportunity for Fenn most Senior to bed in some new goalkeeping kit in terms of fit and strap adjustments.

A relatively simple drill from Tyler pitted some forwards turning and shooting – some from rather closer than expected resulting in the goalkeeper going to ground in a ‘smother’. Foxy did his bit with a shot and left leg guard decided not to be where it was supposed to be and resulted in a rather painful knee with no protection at all. Foxy was not perturbed of course and decided this may actually be beneficial if playing against each other in the next few weeks. Retiring to the injured list, said GK was rostered to umpiring duty for the 3pm match on pitch A and young Nathan scheduled to play for M6 at 4.30pm.

Fast forward to Friday night sees Nathan test positive for Covid and a redrawing of the lines of the injured goal keeper list. And Foxy being drafted in to supplement the M6 bench.

So, on to the windy and previously bright Saturday afternoon on the show pitch at Oaklands against Luton 3. A classic case of "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The sun had already set, making the captain feel no pressure at all about winning the toss, and with a hastily (while quite slow actually) transition from Umpire to Goalkeeper there was just about enough time for a quick warm up (thanks Ben T) and a pep talk to everyone else from The Boss.

The first 15 minutes were dominated by St Albans, with the midfield winning every battle ably assisted by our backs being able to come higher up the pitch. Promising initial breakaways down the left wing and through the centre started to apply pressure and create some good chances, with elegant link up play between Nathan, Jonty, Liam and Ash particularly.

And that was to be the story of most of the first half - but for one lack of concentration at the back which allowed their completely unmarked No 14 to be on the end of a pull back to the P spot only to slash the effort wide of our left post. Having played together before, Captain Cormac had been confident I had it covered, so no apology was needed and it was well forgotten by the voting stage after the match.

Being further buoyed by the lack of finishing ability of the opposition the team continued to press forward and had numerous shots on goal, striking sideboard and hitting the opposition goalies pads. As the tactic of repeatedly lifting the ball straight into the keeper did not seem to be yielding any rewards, it probably meant we needed a change, so when Luton conceded a short...

...Matt clinically injected, Sandi stopped the ball and popped it into D neatly, Captain Cormac got under it and flicked it deftly into the space between keeper and defenders to put his name on the score sheet. 1-0.

When a second short was awarded, we mixed it up to put Liam on strike, but the umpire spotted that Sandi had his stick on the line instead of behind it - which was determined a foul for a 16.

Discussing it in the club house afterwards, it should have been treated as an "early break", with the injector being sent to the half way line, and the short being retaken, but we didn't grumble.

Saints continued to dominate possession: Nathan made another surging run down the middle with a series of one – twos, a really good run that deserved far more than the reward of a 16 to Luton.

Liam played a number of champagne passes from left to right with Forshaw and Dhylan in acres of space to completely bamboozle the Luton team bunching in the other corner.

And Ian and Ben stood solid in the middle mopping up any loose balls that happened to ricochet back into our half.

More inspiring words at half time, some of which came true - especially the ‘one is not enough’ statement.
Another potential vote for Captain Cormac (suppressed in the post match analysis and voting) as he kindly gave the opposition team a bag of jelly babies, which meant the second half saw a slightly more energised Luton.

Fortunately, although Luton came out of the blocks hard, Saints continued to break down their play and kept pushing them wide. Taking on board the feedback to "use your voices", Liam called it perfectly on one of our 16s, demanding the ball out on the left before another curving run and dream pass into the D. Where it found Sandi, doing the tango with one of the Luton defenders in front of the keeper, who was able to get there first and deflect it into the goal. 2-0

Against the run of play, amid more attacking probes from the Tangerines, the ball found its way over to an unmarked Luton forward on the top left of our D. Forsh, Ian and the other defenders shuffled across to hold them out, pushing them to a tighter angle and forcing them to use the last available space to shape around the ball. The attempt to beat the keeper high and near post wasn't the hardest of saves but resulted in a long corner.

That’s where it unravelled a bit as the long corner was passed to probably the best player in the Luton front line who managed to skirt around the top of the D unchallenged before driving inwards and hitting an OK, but not great, shot towards the far corner. This caught our keeper wrong footed, and the dive right which should have come simply didn’t. The result, a goal to Luton, and a DoD vote winner to Fenn for making the game more interesting than it needed to be, and making the team regret the multiple missed chances of the game so far...

Luton continued to step up and the last 15 minutes were filled with battling from both sides. Luton added more pressure with a number of short corners having won none in the first half. On one, they made the same "early break" mistake we had and were treated consistently.

And with the others, their stop and strike tactics were severely hampered by both an injector who thought it was a great idea to put the ball to the far side of the stopper, as far away from the striker as possible, and some excellent running from Nathan to spoil any chance of a recovery.

Captain Cormac appeared to run out of gas with his usual crisp passes and needlessly added to the pressure by gifting the ball to some of the Luton youth, but thankfully Ben, Ian, and Forsh sponged up the spillage.

And, with only a few minutes left to play, and following another sortie up our left wing, Foxy - having earlier in the week tried to take out our keeper - decided to take out a Luton defender after a free hit, resulting in a green card, putting him in contention for a few DoD votes.

One of Luton’s forwards, although deaf, also had quite a bit to say to the umpire after he was cleanly tackled, which quickly resulted in numbers being evened up when a green was produced for him. Probably not the best time to tell the umpire what they could do with their green card, resulted in a fairly swift yellow in addition.

A couple of minutes later, Matt also received a green, after apparently swinging through a Luton stick on the reverse. The fact he was in possession of the ball, and hitting it at the time, didn't seem to brook any consideration.

And with one final unsuccessful short corner for Luton the game damp-squibbed to a conclusion for another victory.