Holmer Green 1st Team (1)3 Tring Ath.Res(0)2

On a truly miserable evening it says a lot for the commitment of this group that everyone was there by 6.45. After some confusion over kit our hosts had to change to allow the game to go ahead.

The game itself followed the by now fairly familiar pattern of our having more than our fair share of possession, looking dangerous down both flanks especially down our right where Ben Johnson fed Jack Sunderland a number of passes which ended with crosses or shots off target. Les Barkers-Obua headed over from a well flight end corner and Jack Read forced a smothering save from their keeper after a pass threaded through by Jack Sunderland.

In midfield Miles Blunsom and Scott Henderson more than held their own and allowed Connor Church to prod and push us forward.

Luke Priestley in goal distributed well and in front of him apart from one long ball Ben Johnson,Sam Jolliffe,Les Barkers - Obua and Gareth Terblanche gave Holmer Green little to bite on.

And then of course 3 mins from half time a cross pulled back from the by line is finished neatly and puts an entirely different complexion on things .

A relatively light hearted half time resulted in 10 mins of outstanding attacking football. On 48 mins we scored the ultimate " hit them on the break" goal when a pass from Gareth Terblanche set Joe Naylor, who had been fairly anonymous in the first period free. He breezed past his full back and smashed in a low cross which was converted by Jack Read. Within 2 minutes Joe Naylor again embarrassed their left sided defenders before smashing in an unstoppable shot.

Again, as we kept feeding Joe, he dribbled through 5 players and only a fingertip safe by their keeper from his cross shot kept Holmer Green in the game.

Sam Jolliffe then unluckily blazed a half volley narrowly over the bar from a corner and that elusive 3 rd goal wouldn't materialise.

For the next 15-20 mins the game got bitty as Holmer Green made attempts to get back in the tie and we perhaps weren't quite as good at keeping the ball but few chances were created until a cross from our left hand side wasn't stopped and a far post header resulted in the equaliser.

The game was now genuinely 50/50 with neither side really creating any clear chances till an unfortunate ricochet left their forward one on one to put us 3-2 in arrears.

Luke Priestley then made a superb save to prevent us going further in arrears and we changed shape to allow 4 then 5 forwards but the deliveries into these forwards lacked a bit of quality and despite a very decent performance we exited the Wycombe Senior Cup. It was flattering but of little consequence that their Assistant Manager said afterwards "Next time turn up with your Reserves not your First team".

L.Priestley. B.Johnson,L.Barkers-Obua,S.Jolliffe ,G.Terblanche (M.Stacey) J.Blunsom (J.Smith), S.Henderson, C.Church (T.Paul)
J.Sunderland, J.Read, J.Naylor.

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