Quote:
Originally Posted by maccawozzagod
I like the parting comments.
Hartlepool visit Edgar Street next Saturday, in what should be a good game of football between two sides who like to get the ball down.
sarcastic Welsh gits  |
Not so much sarcasm as frustration. This was an utterly solid performance by Stanley. Hereford have some big lads up front, and not just Benjamin, and when they managed to find the through ball they looked dangerous. Hats off then to the back three who contained them well, and also to Bavs, who dealt with everything thrown at him, admittedly not nearly as much as he had to do at Morecambe. They had two near misses, one in each half. The first one was well-created with a nice bit of skill putting one of their forwards through. The second happened when we backed off and allowed their man a free shot on goal, one of the few occasions when we didn’t close down quickly enough. He curled it just wide of the far post. It sounds harsh to criticise in the light of such a competitive display, but one moment of lapsed concentration nearly cost us a point, and though it’s something that I’m sure Coley and Jimmy have emphasised to Rocky and co. time and again, I don’t suppose we’re ever going to eliminate it.
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The wing-back ploy worked well down the right with Leam in fine form, though his crossing let him down, in fact I can’t recall Paul Mullin having a quieter game in terms of challenging for goal-bound headers. Branchy unfortunately just doesn’t have the legs to do the same down the left, and this is a key weakness, what we wouldn’t give for a young Steve Hollis. Coley put Rommy in at left-wing back in the second-half, and as we all know this under-uses his attacking abilities, but he has pace and tenacity and this sufficed well enough.
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Of the midfield three, Harris had another excellent game of controlled aggression, good passing and workrate. One has hopes that he has now largely mastered the old red-mist tendency to dive in, the key thing being that he doesn’t need to do it, he’s a better player than that. Towards the end of the game he won the ball in left midfield and sprayed a beautiful cross-field pass to McGivern, a real touch of class from Jay, just a pity that Leighton couldn’t do anything with the opening. Proccy I thought didn’t quite impose himself on the game as we know he can, but he still made his usual hard-working contribution. Craney was deployed in the attacking midfield ‘hole’. He’s undoubtedly trying his best and while some might question his match fitness, I wonder whether confidence is the thing. He’s trying to reprise his Conference role as the bustling midfield attacker, but it’s not quite working for him, and the wing-back system leaves him less wide support than the days when we had Gary and Toddy always there. It was noticeable how Roscoe kept running wide to find space to receive from Craney, but this of course limited Roscoe’s chances to get through on goal.
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But no-one in the Stanley end was complaining with what was a good away point, even though we had a lot of opportunities for set-pieces, few of which had an end product. Chatting to Mike A as we left the game, he pointed out that Graham Turner has a lot of respect for Stanley born from our tussles in the past, and perhaps approached the game with more caution than we usually find from home teams. They were certainly very quick to pull men behind the ball, and this allowed us to retain possession far more effectively than we usually see on the road. Contrary to the Bulls match report, we played it to feet when we could and fully deserved the point.