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MATCH REPORT
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Sumners Athletic 0 vs. 2 Oaklands
Sumners out of cup at first hurdle…
Sumners put in a poor display and were consequently defeated in their first cup game of the season. By the time kick-off came, the SAFC squad had been seriously depleted with Miles Leighton, David Bernie and Andy Rigglesworth all withdrawing due to injury. Preparation was not helped any further with the majority of the squad turning up late which caused a delay in getting the nets up, getting changed, sorting out the starting XI and warming up. Despite all of that, the feeling was that there was nothing to lose so we may as well go out and play like it. Unfortunately, when the whistle went, the attitude seemed to be more one of nothing to play for rather than nothing to lose. Right from the start, Oaklands were the better side as they were the team who seemed to want it more. They won virtually every 50/50, every player wanted the ball and they were willing to keep hold of it. Sumners, on the other hand, were far too tentative in challenging and hardly anyone seemed to want the ball which made it impossible to win and retain possession. Oaklands then took the lead after 10 minutes when a clever diagonal run by the forward saw him get to a bouncing through ball ahead of the SAFC defenders and lob the ball over Joe Smith in the Sumners goal. That should have been a wake-up call but Oaklands continued to dominate and only some positive goalkeeping from Smith prevented further problems for Sumners. There was hardly anything happening from Sumners going forward and the only incident worthy of note from the first half was when Andy Waddington got in down the left side and fired in a good low cross that was turned away by the defender with Dave Bonds lurking. At the other end, Smith was at full stretch to turn away a dipping volley from the Oaklands forward. Oaklands continued to pile forward and had a number of throw-ins and free kicks although didn’t seriously trouble Smith again. It was 1-0 at half-time.
The message at half-time was, unsurprisingly, to up the performance in every area as the first half had not been acceptable, particularly the first 30 minutes of it.
The second half, however, started as the first ended with Oaklands in the ascendency. Oaklands continued to push forward and soon won a corner. The corner was floated in and the midfielder was left with yards of space to power home a free header from the penalty spot. 2-0 and, with Sumners never looking likely to score, it was always going to be an uphill task. A change around was called for with Scott Coupland going up front, Dom Green switching to the right side, Joe Hughes to right back and Marc Etherington to centre back. Sumners did then appear to wake up a little and looked slightly more dangerous as they enjoyed more possession in the Oaklands half. Scott Aitken had SAFC’s best chance of the match when a goalmouth scramble allowed him to turn and shoot for goal but his shot was blocked on the line. There were other corners and set pieces but nothing that seriously troubled Oaklands. Sumners pushed forwards looking to get back into the game and Oaklands looked dangerous on the counter attack with Smith again at full stretch to prevent a third goal being scored. Waddington continued to look dangerous down the left-side but was unable to force a goal while Bonds hit a good low shot that was stopped by the Oaklands ‘keeper. The match then slowed down as Oaklands settled for a 2-0 victory and that is how it ended.
Scott Coupland:
“We cannot really have any complaints about that result today. They were the better side from the start and deserved to win. We were too off the pace today and just never looked scoring and doing enough to win the game. The most frustrating thing is that Oaklands will come away today feeling they have got a pretty routine victory from today and that is because we made it far too easy for them. In reality this was not a competition we were likely to win but it would have been nice to have continued the momentum from last week. We really just need to forget it now though and focus on next week”.
Sumners Athletic:
1. Joe Smith
2. Marc Etherington (sub – Mike Ross)
3. Scott Aitken
4. Liam Crouch
5. Grant Clements
6. Scott Coupland
7. Andy Waddington
8. Joe Hughes (sub – Matt Jolly)
9. Dave Bonds
10. Dom Green
11. Kevin Coupland
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