The Saints Reserves bowed out of the Burghill cup on Saturday losing 1-4 to a very impressive Leintwardine after 120 minutes of football.
Leintwardine dominated the first period playing down the slope and with the wind but the Saints defence held firm with Stuart Davies having an excellent game, Daren Laurie also pulled of several saves from the away sides lively front two. A bad injury to Ceri Ward held the game up for a while and just after the restart Leintwardine took a deserved lead. Wards replacement Matt Crane started to take control of the midfield and put the Saints on the front for the 1st time in the game with Jacko Thomas looking lively upfront things were looking up when the referee blew up for halftime with just a 0-1 lead to Leintwardine and the Saints having the wind in the second period. ht 0-1
The Saints dominated possession in the second half but found the away keeper in top form, he pulled off one quality save from Thomas which had goal written all over it. The equaliser finally came after 68 minutes when Thomas whipped in an inch perfect cross for Ben Bevan who made no mistake from close range. After this the game turned into a farce with the referee booking 10 people, 9 players and manager Andrew Harris for comments directed at him. The final whistle went with the score 1-1.
The first period of injury time was stalemate with Laurie again making a couple of good saves, the second period the Saints were caught on the break by the lightening quick away side striker who netted twice and made the other for 1-4 victory.
I think the scoreline flattered Leintwardine although they did have more scoring chances on the day. The ref spoiled the game with petty bookings in the 2nd half, 8 for us and 2 for them, there wasn’t a real bad tackle in the match which both managers agreeing it was good fair game which the ref tried his best to spoil.
I thought the Saints best players were Stu Davies, Jacko Thomas who is turning into a good footballer but my man of the match goes to Darren Laurie for several quality saves throughout the match.