The Saints dropped 2 points yesterday against a battling Newcastle side.
Newcastle took the lead with their very first attack of the match after just 90 seconds, a ball over the top found their striker who hit his shot first time, the returning Bryan Kirkham did get a hand to it but it was not enough to prevent the goal. The rest of the half was wave after wave of Saints attacks, Newcastle were happy to put 10 men behind the ball and defend deep and leave a lone striker upfront. Dave Exhall in the Newcastle goal made numerous saves from Rob Snedden, Kevin Jones, Josh Wisniewski and Ben Bevan throughout the first half. Referee Rob Evans blew up for half-time with the score 0-1.
With the wind at their backs and playing down the slope everyone thought it was only a matter of time before the Saints scored several as they have done many a time before but Newcastles defence had other ideas, the outstanding Michael Brick led the defence and kept his team going whilst under immense pressure from the Saints, Kevin Jones again going very close. On the hour mark the breakthrough came, a long Ben Bevan throw found it’s way to Wisniewski at the back post, he crossed for Kevin Jones who volleyed home the equaliser from 12 yards. The Saints piled on the presssure but couldn’t get the winner, the nearest they came was a Wisniewski shot which was brilliantly saved by Exhall. Final score 1-1.
A lot of our supporters thought this was a poor performance, I disagree because we dominated the whole of the game(we must have had 25 corners) but found their keeper in excellent form, even their manager said to me after the game that we could of won by 6 or 7 goals. We found it very hard to break them down, they defended with 10 behind the ball and very deep, the wind didn’t help matters either, we started to panic a bit and hit long balls which they dealt with easy. My man of the match is Phil Davies for his non stop running and support play.
Team- B.Kirkham, R.Jones, C.Preece(c), M.Havard(c), P.Davies, B.Bevan, S.Mayglothling, R.Snedden, J.Mayglothling(G.Williams), K.Jones, J.Wisniewski. unused subs- S.Powell, J.Daw, O.Cooke.