Hilltop 9 - 12 Thatched

Much better performance this week, well, eventually! First half we played halfway and although our intention to stop the flow of goals was right, this just didn't work to our favour. Partly due to people playing literally half-way, so we had this flat wall and Thatched found it easy to break us down with through balls behind. Maybe we were just too eager to get forward and forget last week. Anyway, they kept on scoring!

Then with about ten minutes to go, their fastest player was accidently clipped by Stimo and this led to an incident which changed the game in our favour. Firstly we changed to man-to-man marking and secondly, started showing some passion. The game became a lot tighter but come halftime, we were still 8-1 down!

With their quickest man out of the game and our team closing down quicker, we started scoring some goals and Paul played a huge role in turning things around, not just with his goals but his work ethic. Likewise Stimo was another who scored and kept running. The team overall found some memory of how we can play when we work together and try.

Was it not for some unlucky incidents and dodgy rebounds to their favour, we may have found a few more goals but time had other ideas. The game ended 9 - 12 to them and with us being able to lift our heads a bit higher.

Goals: Dave S (1), Paul (4), Ste H (1), Stimo (3)

Team: Burke, Dave S, David, Paul, Graeme, Ste H, Stimo

Hilltop 4 - 11 PLF

I thought we couldn't play any worse than the 19 goal hammering but I was wrong!

I'd rather not dwell on the negatives from this game, partly because we lacked encouragement from each other this night, including myself.

We need to see more from everyone next game, going forward and especially in defence. We just managed to beat PLF last time, due to clever defending, graft and some special goalkeeping from Graeme.

We need to start playing the ball to feet and making intelligent runs more often. 1-2's, overlaps, all the basics rather than long shots & corner balls.

I'm not certain who scored but the below figures ring some kind of bell!

Goals: Craig (3), Ken (1)
Team: Burke, Craig, David, Graeme, Ken, Ste H, Stimo

Hilltop on Nike Advert

I just caught a flash advert on the Pitz website that was really clever. I was logged in and the advert must pull the name of our team from my profile and then display it in the advert, so its aimed in a more personal way.

Here's the screenshots of the advert;

Hilltop 7 - 7 Collwell

We beat these 9 - 2 last time around, last night we should have won again. Reverting back to our halfway style, we stopped the easy & obvious through balls that haunted us last week. Having Graeme back in made a huge difference too, we can look for those long through balls and know he can get us on a quick break with an accurate throw out.

Unfortunately our counter attacks & through balls weren't as fruitful as they have been and the goals came from open play, passing down the line and then through the middle where the likes of Craig or myself would knock it in from 10 yards out. Davids goal was the only finish that came close to a one on one.

Defence was ok, still room for improvement with better use of zonal marking and the high defender doubling up when their sweeper is outta the picture. I know this can be a dangerous ploy sometimes but as long as you stay aware of their man over, you can add some pressure to their player on the ball and hopefully help your teammate.

We led the game until the final minute, when a shot from a tight angle deflected off my block and beat Gray at the near post. Was a gutting moment as I thought the angle was covered and so tried to cover any infield pass. 30 seconds later we had a great opportunity to win the game when I broke from defence, could have went all the way but instead a tired head made me pass the book & layed it off to Craig who didnt get the shot off. He says I passed it behind him - I think he should have done better but either way we were both tired and I should have buried the chance anyway.

Next week I'd like to see tighter & compact defending in the middle. Lets see if we can force them down the wings and look for counter's behind them.

Overall, much better performance than last week, we had Graeme back in goal and played halfway to try and keep the goals down. There's still a lot to do to get back to our normal standard but if we can keep the back tight and counter more effectively, hopefully we can start getting 3 points again.

Goals: Craig (3), David (1), Ste H (3)

Team: Burke, Craig, David, Graeme, Ken, Ste Foote, Ste H, Stimo

Hilltop 5 - Farmers 19 (TBC)

Hammerings, walkovers, pastings, some of the initial terms I thought we could have as labels on this blog (so you can put selected match reports into category containing similar write ups). However, as it wasn't really clear if it was for or against, I just went with "Big Defeats" & "Big Victories".

It don't take much thought deciding where to stick this report....

Farmers beat us the first time we met in the initial 4 game intro when we joined Thursday League. Then we had Graeme in goal and a team with more confidence. Thursday gone we had Davids mate John in goal (he's helped us out a few times before and done well, although always gets injured!), he pulled off some good saves but no disrespect to him, we missed Graeme. 

If I'm being honest, Graeme would have brought the goals against down considerably but the outfield team still sucked. It was frustrating to witness the lack of effort and general balls to chase back, not shirk responsibility and provide cover off the ball. Time and time again the team defended high, invited through balls but didn't track back. In hindsight I should have dragged everyone back to half-way defending but when your chasing the game, it's easy to get lost in the action.

Going forward we had little composure and our first touch wasn't always the best. They had a solid keeper in goal although a lot of our strikes did go down the middle.

Hopefully we will have things a little more back to normal next game, maybe we needed a big defeat to draw a line at the silly mistakes and selfish, lazy defending. It's good we aren't going to walk this league anyhow.

Goals: Craig (3), Burke (1)

Team: Burke, Craig, David, Graeme, Gary, Ken, Ste H, Stimo

Hilltop 10 - 0 Monaco (Default)

Ten nil default win.

Hilltop 4 - 11 Thatched

Even though they only had 5, they out played us through most of the game. Their keeper was possibly the best we've faced this season and their outfield players closed us down really well. We didn't defend together effectively and left Graeme to deal with their attacks alone all too often. Gray was awesome and stopped the scoreline from being embarrasing.

We did have our chances, the unfortunate thing was Craig getting a knock on his injured ankle early on. Which meant we had lost our main goal threat and the rest of the team couldn't make up for it through either lack of fitness, form or confidence. We do have the resources to cover such things but not when the team plays like they did this game. It was good to see David knocking in 2 good goals out of nothing.

Even though the performance was dissapointing, we are still leading the division and we can just use this defeat to tighten up our shape and remember that we need to work hard and defend deep.

Goals: David (2), Craig (2)
Team: Burke, Craig, David, Craig, Ken, Ste H, Stimo