Herts Intermediate Cup
Tring Athletic Reserves v Bovingdon Reserves

Firstly I have to say that our opponents take a lot of credit from this game.

On a blustery day kicking down the slope and with the elements behind us we never reached anywhere near the heights of our previous performance on Thursday night and maybe two hard games in a short period of time affected us.
But after 20 mins when Jack Sunderland missed and Scott Henderson failed to hit the target with 2 headers it seemed only a question of time.
The game became scrappy, littered by mistakes and a general lack of the correct attitude before a peach of a free kick from Frankie Hercules resulted in a deft header by Sam Jolliffe on the far post for a 1-0 lead.

Playing up the slope should have made it easier but again as a spectacle it wasn't pretty. We lost Sam Jolliffe with a calf injury after 10 mins and on 58 mins Bovingdon scored a route one equaliser.
As ever this squad doesn't lie down and within 2 minutes Joe Naylor ghosted in from the left hand side to finish neatly.
Unsurprisingly Bovingdon pushed bodies on and used the conditions well but we defended reasonably well in difficult circumstances before a miskicked clearance from a corner was returned with interest. We then spurned a great opportunity at the far post following a good Ollie Ruttle cross. And so to extra time!!!

Playing down the slope we were now really feeling the after affects from Thursday and this was made worse when Gareth Terblanche had to come off to leave us with 10 men and 25 mins to go.

Our response as usual was to get on with the job and after a decent move again down our left Ollie Ruttle cut in and finished across the keeper.
For the last period of extra time we played effectively a 5-3-1 formation and plenty of hard work we repelled a whole series of long balls, crosses and corners and with 5 mins to go mini ?- gaffer James Shaw got the ball on the edge of the area and having dropped his shoulder he passed the ball into the net to seal the win.

I'll make it clear I was very disappointed with at least one player and will not let bad apples spoil what we are building.

Never truer the expression poor performance - good result.

Thanks to, all those that came to support it was greatly appreciated.

Still unbeaten whilst on the boat!!!!

L.Priestley , M.Stacey,S.Jolliffe ( T.Paul) G.Terblanche.
S.Henderson,C.Blake,W.Salmon ( J.Shaw) J.Naylor.
J.Smith ( O.Ruttle) F.Hercules (E.Anderson) J.Sunderland.

Tweet