Mens 5s vs Richmond Deerstalkers: 2-2 Draw (22nd October)

The men’s fives were very much ready for the game against Richmond Deerstalkers and we were ready for our first win of the season. We came out strong, the possession was mainly ours and we started to move the ball well. Richmond would have an occasional attack but we were also defending well.

Play was mainly in Richmond’s half and there were a number of shots on the Richmond goal. Eventually Chris Wiggins managed to squeeze one past the keeper after a deflection. The first half ended 1:0 to us after a bit of scrappy play towards the end of the half.

We settled down again at the beginning of the half and were threatening Richmond’s goal again. We in fact had our next goal disallowed by the umpire for a dangerously high ball before the shot. While we felt a bit hard done by we regrouped and after some constant pressure on goal Zak got the keeper out of position by forcing him to take him out leaving the goal unguarded and Chris Wiggins managed to smash a second into the back of the net meaning we were 2-0 up.

We had another chance for a goal after we won a short corner and Zak narrowly missed the ball on the far post. At this point I feel I need to mention that one of the umpires was making some extremely questionable decisions including calling Inesh for hitting the ball straight in to the D after he had clearly moved it about 8 yards. Nick Stoupas took offence to this and chose to describe how offended he was earning him a green and then a yellow in a matter of minutes.

This gave Richmond a chance to re-group and the play began to get scrappy. We were also getting more tired due to the additional running. Richmond won a number of short corners and despite some brilliant keeping from Louis and two goal line saves from Ray (which later won him the man of the match) the Deerstalkers frustratingly managed to get two in the back of the net. Final score was 2-2 and we were denied our first win of the season. Nick won the DOD vote for getting the yellow card of course.

MOM: Ray Brighenti - Goal line saves
DOD: Nick Stoupas - Yellow card