| Match Report
Sunday 21.03.04 arrived and after paying thanks to our mothers, or like kyd having a cuppa then bailing out of her celebration lunch. We arrived at a windy HeatherVale Stadium for our penultimate league fixture of the season... win this and we can still get promoted, lose and that's it for us this year.
A strong squad meant the team stayed unchanged from last weeks impressive second-half destruction of Bullca. We even won the toss with some psychological warfare from Skippy and elected to play with the wind first half, in order to blow them away... geddit.
The game started with Poyntz having the first serious attack and half chance, this led to a bit more pressure from poyntz in which Jonesy made 2 or 3 great blocks/tackles. From here on in though Bilbao ruled the rest of the first half, our first real chance came from a corner which Jenks sent to the far post this was knocked down by Steve for wilf to turn and prod goalwards, unfortunately this hit the post and was cleared by a relieved defence. Jonsey then had to go off after injuring his wrist under his own weight, this was a shame as he'd been playing really well and was going for a record of two consecutive 90mins, this forced us to switch to a 3-5-2 formation. Despite this Bilbao continued to control the game and use the wind to pin Poyntz in their own half we won a serious of throws and corners but just couldn't find that elusive clear chance. We had a couple of goal mouth scrambles and Denny hit a great effort from the edge of the box that was turned away by the keeper with what seemed more luck than judgement. But as it was, a good first half performance only took us in at 0-0 at half-time.
The second half kicked off with us now facing into the heavy wind and needing a win, it was going to need a good performance to do this against the league leaders, but we had found a couple of weak links in their defence and were confident. Straight away the impact of the wind came in to play and Poyntz were enjoying far more of the ball and looking dangerous, about 10 mins in it all went wrong when a through ball from left to right allowed there winger in with plenty of space and time he finished nicely to in the top right corner to put Poyntz 1-0. From here it all went wrong both for us and the ref, after a good first half his decisions started to fall apart (like us) it was probably from the constant barracking fro Steve, Jenks and Phil that led to this and the second goal, which started just inside our half when Jenks lost a header while being in a head lock that the Rock would have been proud of. Again the move was finished off with a good finish in the aftermath of this goal the whole team surrounded the Ref Man Utd style and Jenks and obviously Steve ended up with a booking each for dissent... this got worse 10 mins later, when Steve went off for apparently committing the only thing he wasn't guilty off during the game. Almost luckily for him it looked like a comeback might be on the cards as Denny beat the defence and goal keeper to a through ball to prod past the keeper to make it 2-1 and give us a chance. Then within about 3 minutes Poyntz broke down their left and found their striker inside the box who fired high into the left corner again a good finish to kill the game off. From here Jenks also received his marching orders for one to many comments in earshot of the Referee and joined Steve on the bench. To compound our misery Poyntz added a fourth goal to seal their promotion to the Premiership.
Congratulations to Poyntz who look like their going to win the league, they used the wind far more effectively today and all of their goals were well taken. It highlighted our lack of clinical finishing and the midfield's inability to get enough goals. Jenks and especially Steve should be disappointed with them selves. Steve especially who started the season so well but has recently fallen in to his old ways !!! This result leaves us likely to finish in fourth a place as a season of real promise dissolves into disappointment. Not many great performances today Jonsey played well until injury and Mr Dependable Eddy played well apart from that there was little to write home about. Bilbao now turn their attention to the F.A Cup.
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