Ten Men Saints Lose Opener.
August 11th, 2018
The Saints were beaten 2-5 today by Four Crosses FC.
The turning point in the game came in the 40th minute. Whilst leading 2-1 with goals from Matty Tong and Jack Biggs, youngster Callum Maddy was shown a straight red for throwing his marker to the floor after another late challenge on the midfielder.
We started brightly and deservedly went ahead in the 4th minute when Richard Meredith’s long throw was flicked on by Jack Biggs to Matty Tong, who rolled the ball onto his favoured left foot and shot from the edge of the area into the top right corner of the net giving the keeper no chance.(1-0)
The visitors were not behind for long, a lob from 22 yards flew into the back of the net over keeper Tom Lewis.
We continued to play well, Adi Lawford hit the crossbar after shot from the edge of the area. We went back ahead when Brendan Hacketts corner was headed in by the impressive Biggs. (2-1)
It wasn’t one way traffic, the visitors went close on a couple of occasions but failed to find the back of the net. Tong headed inches over and Biggs again went close with another header from a corner. We also felt we had two good penalty appeals waved away, the one looked stone wall but the referee waved play on.
The game turned in the 40th minute when Callum Maddy who was having a very good match saw red for retaliating after being on the end of yet another late challenge. Maddy got up and threw his opponent to the floor, referee Andrew Mills had no option other than show a red card.
Ht 2-1
The second half couldn’t have started any worse than it did, within two minutes ‘Crosses’ equalised after a back pass should of been cleared. Five minutes later goal keeper Lewis and striker Tong had to leave the field with injuries.
It didn’t take long for the visitors to take the lead, we did have a couple of chances at 2-3, replacement Harry Hooper going close and again Biggs was unlucky. The visitors broke and put the game to bed 2-4 and from there on in controlled the rest of the game adding one more to their total.
ft 2-5
Four Crosses looked a good side and will be up towards the top come the end of the season in my opinion but for 40 minutes we more than matched them, Callum’s sending off cost us the game. I understand his frustrations as he’d also just been stamped on by the same player but if the referee hasn’t seen it you can’t take matters into your own hands like that. We will now be without one of our best players for a couple of games. It’s one of those days to forget, however, we go into the next game without 3 maybe 4 of our starting 11 from Saturday.
Many thanks to match sponsor Jamie Evans who chose Jack Biggs as our man of the match.
