A hard fought draw with 2 quality goals....

County approached the return fixture with Finchlean’s expecting a much sterner test after their drubbing of them last time out. We approached the fixture with a string squad of 17 but by the start we only had 2 on the bench & of those, 1 (Delage) pulled a muscle in the warm up & headed off home.
However, County started strongly with Lewis in goal, Dickenson, Shah, Lovett & Wingrove looking firm at the back & the midfield of Jeff Anderson, Kirk, Kelly (making his long awaited debut), Aldeiri passing the ball around well. Bisogno & Sniffer Milne provided the tireless running & firepower up front.
In fact, Finchlean’s who are known as a passing side, were out passed & out fought in the first half with Milne going close on a couple of occasions, Kirk having a few digs & Bisogno unlucky as well.
Aldeiri spared our blushes after a good passing moved started down the left ended up with him receiving the ball on the edge of the box, he feinted to pass it out wide & then calmly lobbed the keeper; fantastic opener for a great half.
We went in at half time 1-0 up & talked about keeping the momentum in the second. However we promptly forgot all about that & were slow off the mark. Certainly the oppo changed their formation to counteract our game plan, but sloppy play & lack of closing down from County meant that Finchlean’s scored 2 goals in quick succession. The first one blasted in off the underside of the bar & the second from a cross the took a wicked deflection off the ‘Jeff’ & fell kindly to the oppo to put them 2-1 up from close range.
The game became fairly end to end as legs started to tire. Kerby arrived in time to replace Shah at the back & Lamont came on for Kelly with Wingrove pushed up into midfield. County had a number of half chances before Dickenson showed us all how to do it with his first goal for the Supervets. Striding out from the back over the half way line, he played one two’s with first the ‘Jeff’ then Bisogno, bursting into the area, spinning collecting the ball & flicking it past the onrushing goalie into the back of the net.
Shah had to deputise for Lewis in goal for the last 15 minutes after the latter pulled a hammy keeping us in the game & it ended in a hard fought draw.
A fair result, with a fantastic first half performance & 2 quality goals from the County. Hopefully we can fit one more game in before the end of the season but it’s certainly looking good for next season.