St Albans X 2 - 1 Hertford VI

Despite losing Daryl, Graham and Ewan to higher teams, we put out a pretty good 13 against St Albans and would probably have come away at least with a draw if we had been a bit sharper. Their young side were no better than us on skills but they had the edge for pace and we had long phases when we played too slow, delayed our passes and allowed ourselves to get crowded out. Chris and Aaron gave us an early opportunity trading passes into the right corner, and we worked pretty well through midfield, but a firm short corner strike from Dave was our only other clear chance in the first half. At the other end at Albans had plenty of shots, but few on target. But as they managed to hit the post twice and miss an open goal from two feet within one fifteen second phase, we were probably lucky to get to half time at 0 – 0.

They always looked a bit vulnerable if we could get behind the defence, and with 45 minutes gone Chris Duncan put in the perfect through ball from half way for Chris Dean to chase into the D and flick past the keeper. We had chances to consolidate as Tom repeatedly troubled them down the left, but wasted a couple of good build ups. St Albans reasserted themselves in the last quarter and at last began to find the target as the backs tired and the marking got ragged, and the game slipped away from us. We played one last brilliant length of the pitch move in search of the equaliser but saw our last chance go wide. Good hard effort from our Academy guest Alex, and a tight performance from Richard at the back showed us we have lots of progress to look forward to.