The Saints supporters were treated to a ten goal thriller yesterday in an end to end game.
The Saints opened the scoring after 15 minutes when youngster Tom Wilks turned his marker on the left wing and sent in an inch perfect ball for Mike Ward to run onto and blast in the opener from 15 yards. Weston replied within 4 minutes with their classy number 10 finishing well when put through, back came the Saints and the goal of the day was scored next when Garry Keeble won the ball in the centre of the pitch and passed to Jacko Thomas who turned his marker and played the ball to striker John Sly, Sly took one step and hit a 25 yard curling shot up into the top corner of the net, a definate contender for goal of the season. The Saints had barely stopped celebrating when Weston replied again to make it 2-2 and just before half-time the away side went in front for the first time in the match. ht 2-3.
The next goal was very important and it was Ward who hit a bullet of a shot from the edge of the box to make the score 3-3, the impressive Stuart Davies commited a foul with a crunching tackle and from the resulting free kick an unmarked Weston player tapped in to put them 4-3 ahead. It took the Saints just 3 minutes to reply and it was defender Davies with a powerful header from midfielder Keebles corner to make it 4-4 with 10 minutes to go. Kevin Jones had the ball played into his feet on the edge of the box he turned the defender and scored to make it 5-4 with just a few minutes left but the game wasn’t over as Weston scored yet another equaliser and there was still time for both sides to hit the woodwork. ft 5-5.
I thought the final result was a fair one with neither side deserving to win or lose, the number 10 for Weston was one of the best centre forwards I’ve seen locally for a long time, for the Saints Stuart Davies again had another solid game, John Sly always looked dangerous with his pace but my man of the match for probably covering every blade of grass on the pitch is Garry Keeble.
Team- D.Laurie, G.Ratcliffe(G.B.Keeble, A.Howard(c), S.Davies, C.Bounds, T.Wilks, B.Walsh, G.Keeble, M.Ward, J.Thomas(K.Jones), J.Sly(W.Goodwin).