By Jai Martins
The M4s fell short against a strong Richmond side, 2-0.
After a close game against London Wayfarers last week, the 4s looked to get back to winning ways. The game started evenly, both teams fighting hard. Akshay Palaniappan made some quality saves to make sure the score stayed 0-0. However, after 20 minutes, Richmond broke the deadlock with an effective sequence of passes, finished off skilfully by their striker. The 4s fought back winning a couple of short corners. Unfortunately, none of these were converted, with close efforts from Alex Christie.
With strong leadership from Angus Burns and Alessandro Onano ,the 4s looked to improve on previous mistakes and win the game. The 2nd half started well for the 4s with excellent line breaking runs from Alex Christie and strong tackles from David James, Scott Ellis and Luke Tullo beating back the applied pressure from Richmond. Unfortunately our defensive efforts were not strong enough; Richmond winning and converting a short corner.
2-0 down, but never giving up, the 4s carried on pushing right to the final whistle. Short, sharp passing from Samir Ahmad, Freddie Trathen and Jai Martins saw Southgate a serious threat. Alessandro Onano and Angus Burns also making effective long and short ranged passes to our forward line of Alastair Whatley and Rich Martins. Eventually, our periods of good play resulted in a well deserved short corner. After a slight mishap in the injection, the ball was stopped by Scott Ellis and pulled back to Alex Christie. Looking to score, Alex flicked the ball, heading for the net … but Alastair got in the way, knocking the ball off its course with his stick. This sounds like a DoD worthy moment, however, just moments earlier Alastair had been hit in the head and won the short corner, so it’s hard to be too critical.
MOTM – Alex Christie: Excellent ball carrying from CB, breaking lines and solid at the back. Special mention to Alastair Whatley who received 2 nominations, his reaction to this however, almost warranted him being named DoD.
DOD – Jai Martins: Rash tackle, resulting in a yellow card.