BNU Masters 3 v Naenae Pace, 3/7/10 at Naenae
0-2 (HT 0-0)

As I complained last week, we only seem to get cancelled when scheduled to play the teams down at our level. So we were required to leave home days before this game to get to some place in northern Cumbria to meet the top team on home turf. They had won our first meeting easily (see http://www.bnu.org.nz/sca-match-reports/16-masters-3/206-bnu-masters-3-v-naenae-pace-8th-may-2010-happy-valley) but we have defended well in recent games and hoped to make it a closer game.

Naenae won the toss and chose to play with the wind, slope, sun, numbers (they seemed to have a whole team of substitutes), and field conditions (ie attacking the non-boggy end) all in their favour for the first half, probably expecting to win the game early and then take it easy. However this didn't happen for them - we basically played what ex-Socceroo Craig Foster calls fightball and battled hard in defence, not giving them many opportunities to play crosses, closing down the quick skilful right-winger, and dispossessing their strikers whenever they got the ball near the box. Their long-distance shooting didn't trouble Mike R much, and the closest they went was when a striker managed a left-foot strike as Chris L tackled him. Mike R got down well to push the shot wide, but Chris L took a knock to a kidney which ended his game.

In attack, we had to play wide to avoid the bog, and didn't get any chances to shoot. The main thing was that we avoided conceding while Naenae had the best conditions (thanks to Rob, Kevin, Steve and Craig across the back line), so were pretty happy with the score at half-time and optimistic that we could apply some pressure in the second half. It didn't work out so well, but Naenae were forced to play from the back and try to attack on the break rather than dominating the midfield. We created a few chances - Mike O received a through-ball which had split two defenders but the keeper was quick enough to come out and close him down, and Ian had a run down the right and beat a couple of defenders before cutting the ball back for Cliff to shoot, but it went straight at the keeper. Almost immediately, Naenae ran the ball up to our penalty area and a striker turned to create space and used it to shoot low into the corner. Although we kept pushing forward, no more clear chances came, and Naenae got another goal much like the first. Stu had a busy time filling in at left-back, dealing with the right-winger and putting in some solid tackles and stopping him for cutting towards goal or feeding the strikers. We finished the game with a series of attacks and got a few corners, and the nearest we went to scoring was when Ian hit the stanchion but the keeper probably had it covered if it had been on target.

This loss doesn't look so bad compared to the last time we played Naenae, but it is concerning that we haven't scored since May 22. Here's hoping we meet some slack defences in whichever games aren't washed out for the rest of the season. Thanks also to Naenae for their post-match hospitality - saving a table for us in the club room and supplying drinks, so we felt obliged to hang around to contribute to their ritual of every team nominating a player of the day (Mike R for keeping us in the game) and archaic-slang-term-for-male-appendage of the day (Stu, just for asking). Luckily, none of us won the raffle for which the winner had to bear the stigma of owning an England jersey.

Ian Smart