Blueharts 7s 2-1 Hertford 5s

After another Friday evening of last minute roster changes, we took a bare 11 to Hitchin to face a Blueharts team full of skilful youth, supported by a very strong adult presence.
We started off poorly, running into challenges and making silly mistakes all across the park. We sat far too deep and allowed them acres of space and time, failing to close down and put a tackle in or mark tightly to a man. Blueharts went 1-0 up after 20 minutes, when one of their youngsters who had been asked to play extremely high behind our defence the entire game, got his stick on the end of a stray ball to sneak it in at the near post. We did provide some threat on the counter attack, Mark cutting inside from the left effectively on numerous occasions and making some killer balls through to Chris and Louis Joe, but our end product wasn’t quite there from open play. Our short corner routine seems to be quite effective this season though, and we almost equalised before half time, with Josh firing a shot just wide of the post, Louis Joe not quite able to get his stick on it.
At half time we reshuffled slightly, Steve being tasked with marking their key man out of the game, and the midfield and fullbacks being asked to push higher up the pitch. Everybody responded positively, and it turned into a game of two halves. Their chances were fewer in the second half, their goal coming from a short corner routine we could have done better with. However we continued to press them and work the ball down the pitch well, Will working exceptionally hard to cover an awful lot of ground on the left. Josh, Chris, Mark, Ben and Louis Joe all fired at least one shot each wide of the mark, and the score line could have been different if we’d all worn our shooting boots. Our consolation goal came from our wildcard short corner routine, Mark slipping Ben the short pass, before he slapped it hard but slightly too high at the gaping hole at the near post. Luckily Mark got a clever touch on it to get it back onto the ground and onto the backboard for a well worked goal. We continued to search for an equaliser, battling against a team determined to time waste for the final 5 minutes, but we didn’t quite manage it.
Well done to my MoM which is Mark, who held the ball up well throughout and was constantly harassing their back line. Thanks to Rob for jumping back in goal - a great game with some excellent kicking clearances. Also thanks to Alex for what was a solid debut for Hertford, we’ll do our best to keep hold of you in the 5s as long as we can..
Let’s keep our heads up and look for some results in the run up to Christmas. Maybe we can pick up some points at the quiz tonight…

Josh