Queen Mary College Old Boys 2 - 0 Southgate County II

Queen Mary College OBs 2 – 0 Southgate County II

Unfortunately poor availability in the first team meant players were called up from the 2s thus depleting our squad; this was compounded by 2 injuries suffered in our victory last week meaning we were up against it if we were to build on our opening day win, against a side who won their first game 10-1. We had a scratch bare 11 and set out to be solid and hard to beat.

We started ok and much of the first half was fairly even. The only time Queen Mary troubled us was the odd long ball into the box, but they were played from very deep and it was more a lack of communication on our part, probably as a result of us fielding half a new team from last week. We put together some decent play but our final pass was terrible most of the time. Too many players held on to the ball far too long before being dispossessed, they failed to cross when in good positions or chose to attempt a 50 yard cross field pass when a simple 5 yard pass was available. Despite this the best chance of the half fell to us after our best move of the half. We played 6 or 7 simple passes that resulted with Ben Lambert playing a great ball over the top of the Queen Mary defence to put Valentino Owuso through on goal; unfortunately Tino fluffed his shot wide with the keeper rushing out.

The second half followed exactly the same pattern as the first but our lack of fitness was very apparent. A couple of players took knocks in the first half and so were limping around…they soldiered on but it was far from ideal. Our work rate as a team just wasn’t there and we were allowing Queen Mary more and more time on the ball. That said the better chances still fell to us and we spurned two decent chances to take the lead. On 70 minutes we fell behind to a very poor goal from our point of view; a long ball forward and we were slow to react, as well as slow to close the ball down to begin with. We then had a good 5/10 minutes of pressure winning a few corners and causing panic in the Queen Mary box on a couple of occasions. We just couldn’t force the ball home. With 10 minutes to go and us pushing for an equaliser we were hit on the counter attack…the ball cruelly deflecting off one of our covering defenders into the net.

A disappointing result but in our defence we were hindered by lack of availability of players in other teams more than anything else. We battled hard without ever showing enough quality and Queen Mary deserved their win.

Man of the Match was Ben Lambert who was excellent throughout and didn’t deserve to concede the goals we did.

Team; Callan, Marchant, Coehurst, Kerby, Lambert, Mensah, Danso, Middleton, O’Brien, Nelson, Owuso.