Match Report : Jatin Patel
Result : DRAW 4-4 vs Old Loughts Supervets
The Titans headed off on Saturday for a tough away match against second in the table Old Loughts. With a great depth in the squad we were keen to start strongly and we did exactly that moving the ball around well from the whistle. This initial pressure was rewarded with a good passage of play through Howie, Greg and Ali P in the midfield ending with a ball up to Joergen who buried it in the opposition goal to put us one up……Rewind <<<<<..ball ended up to Joergen whose initial thought was to cross it whilst performing a pirouette and the ball ended up in goal. It threw everyone including the Umpire but the ball was in the net – good start!
Normal service resumed after the goal as we lost a little bit of concentration and turned the ball over to the opposition too easily and on three occasions we were punished quickly with a set of very well taken opportunities quickly changing the momentum and putting us 3-1 down. The rest of the half had us defending solidly with Lawrence and Peds holding it together well in the middle ably supported by Biffi and Duncan on the right and left and an active Cliff P in goal (Happy Birthday Cliff!).
After a good half time talk from Big hands, Jatin and Peds we came out for the second half aiming to salvage the game and possibly go on to win it. We seized the game back with a quickly won short corner and well worked routine with Jatin playing a great ball back from the top of the circle towards the injector and Howie Wilson putting it promptly into the goal. We restored our shape, there was great work rate across the middle of the pitch from Wiz, Brian and Shami providing a great target for us up front we kept on pushing, and were rewarded with two more goals from Jatin and Greg to put us 1 goal ahead. In the past we struggled to find the rhythm with subs coming on and off but on Saturday, we utilised the subs well into positions that helped us excel and we continued to push but a team not to be undone Old Loughts got themselves back into the game and fought back despite more stout defending and some great challenges from Nick Hollet they managed to find a way back into the game and scored an equaliser with 5 minutes left on the game.
Titans were still not done here with a draw and 2 more chances created were superbly saved by their keeper. Then came a moment of madness…. Cliff stay in your goal, challenges outside the circle are not your strong point…All credit to Cliff, he had to do something and came off his line to stop the on-coming attacker, but instead of tackling the ball, he managed to tackle the attacker’s stick and the umpire gave a Flick only for a good bit of umpire liaison work from Joergen who pointed out that a Flick cannot be given for a bad tackle outside the D. A short corner was awarded, Cliff survived a Yellow card, Old Louts failed to convert it and the evening/night ended up with well fought game played with great team spirit!
Quiz >>>> A particular Titan has always had a smell for good teas and decided that compromising a shower after the game was a better option just so not to miss out on the Sausage Chips and Beans – Can you guess who the mystery person was?