Duncan Barkes

And in the old-fashioned way, they kept their heels on the touchline.

they were spread right across the pitch they came in inside of course occasionally if they were likely to be involved in in pressing particularly but as soon as we got the ball they went out onto the touchline and we used them a lot but we couldn't get past enough we couldn't get enough uh opportunities to cross the ball or shoot

because their fullbacks were young and fast and very good at the slide tackle when the cross is about to come in.

A number of times, Blair skinned his number three, I think his name was Koumas, and yet Koumas managed to slide in and block the cross.

OK, went for a corner, but we didn't have any luck with our corners.

And Ali was taken care of because they doubled up on him.

They knew about him.

And on occasions when he got the ball and it was one-on-one, one of their midfield players, or it may have been one of their back line, came herring across to double up in his support for his own full-back.

So they knew about the threat of Ali.

I watched Colby Bishop specifically for several minutes, several times, and he worked so hard at keeping both those centre halves tied up.

They can't go forward and they dare not risk, unless it's absolutely necessary, going to help the full-back.

because Colb spends most of his time keeping both of them tied up.

He's still our target man for long balls out.

Schmidt, in particular, looks up with the ball at his feet, and if he's going to go long, he looks for Colby Bishop every time.

And again, Colby won an awful lot of ball, including one occasion when he was able to wrestle his central defender backwards and backwards and backwards, just pushing him back, pushing him back,

You know, you don't see referees giving fouls if a player is simply pushing his back against the player who's pushing forward at him.

So it's a 50-50.

And Colby does that so well that on one occasion he was able to take the ball on his chest, which is a real credential of a skilled professional, number nine.

I'm going to have to talk about their goal with deep regret.

Because you can only say that it was a double howler by poor old Seggs.