Hay Reserves lost out for the first time in their pre-season schedule in a well contested game against Pegasus Reserves 3-5. Manager Harris and assistant Liam Pugh were both very happy with the performance and felt that on another day Hay could have had a share of the spoils. After experimenting for most of the pre-season the management duo decided to do away with the idea of playing three up top and instead attempted to pack the midfield against a strong Pegasus team. Hay were on top on the early stages and went ahead through a cute finish from Josh Wisniewski after some good work outside the box.
From there Harris had hoped that Hay would kick on and dominate further but the goal only seemed to inspire the visitors who put together wave after wave of attacks only to be thwarted on numerous occasions by Brian Kirkham. In the end the pressure told and after a point blank save from Kirkham Pegasus' striker tucked home the rebound.
From there Hay seemed to struggle and soon found themselves 1-4 behind with Harris screaming from the sideline for his side to play a higher defensive line. The Saints slowly clawed their way back into the game and the always dangerous Josh Wisniewski gave Hay a life line moments before half time, scoring from a cross by the hard working Garry Keeble. H/T 2-4
Harris rang the changes at half time making six changes and after stressing the importance of playing higher up the pitch the home side started brightly and should have got the score back to 3-4 only for the visiting keeper to save well to his left from a Josh Wisniewski penalty following a hand ball in the box. It wasn't to be Wizza's night however and moments later he was denied his hat trick, this time by the cross bar after leaping well and connecting with a Tom Wilkes cross. All of Hay's hard work eventually came undone as after a brief lack of concentration Pegasus scored their fifth and final goal of the game following some great work by their number 5 Mitch Bunclarke.
Hay still kept pressing and took the game to Pegasus with the midfield trio of Kevin Jones, Tom Weaver and Wilf Ratcliffe closing down and dominating the middle. Hay were to have the final say in the proceedings after a great cross from Tom Wilkes was put into his own net by a Pegasus defender to bring the score back to 3-5. Both sides had chances to score again in the last ten minutes but a heavy touch from the ever impressive Darren Horrigan prevented him from opening his account for Hay whilst at the other end Kirkham made a fine save down to his left to once again deny the visitors.
After the game Harris was full of praise for his side saying "I was a bit apprehensive before kick off tonight as we have started poorly in the last two games and we knew that Pegasus were going to be a very good side. They are the best side we have faced to date and I thought that the boys acquitted themselves well. We have a great spirit building in the group and it's great to see such a competitive spirit from the lads even when the game is going against us, they didn't stop working all night. We could have done slightly better in the first half and we spoke at half time about believing in our ability more and how we need to impose our style of play on sides a bit more. It was great to see Brian Kirkham back in a Hay shirt and I thought that he had a good game for us. I'd love to see him sign but we will just have to see what happens. Steve Jones had a great second half for us and is always a great voice on the pitch whilst I thought that the guys in the middle all battled well for the 90 minutes. Their number five Mitch Bunclarke caused us problems all night and I'm glad we don't have to play against him again this year. It's a tough one to call for man of the match as it was such a solid team performance but with his outstanding work rate and two well taken goals my man of the match goes to Josh Wisniewski".
Man of the match Josh Wisniewski.
Next Wednesday sees the Reserves face off against Kingstone Harriers in their last fixture before the season starts. K.O at 19:30