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Manager Ryan Owens reports on his side's 3-2 defeat at Hadleigh United on Saturday 28 July
We had several new players in the squad from last week with a few of last week’s team away on holiday. Going back to my old club was always going to be interesting, but I knew it would be a good test for the lads.
The game was very different from last week's as we didn’t play as fluently and with the same level of confidence as we had the week before, so much so that Hadleigh took the lead half way through the first half when their forward managed to stay onside to slot past Jonathon Griggs.
We were fortunate to get back into the game when a searching ball from the back was headed past his own goalkeeper by the Hadleigh defender, with Kirk Hardy chasing it down, trying to get a touch to claim it, alas his legs just weren’t long enough!!
Hadleigh were then reduced to 10 men when their defender challenged Ben Woodfield with an over the top challenge, with the tackle and then the push to Carl Cook straight after, the referee brandished the red card.
We made several changes at half time, completely changing the back four in order to have a look at the new players in the squad. I think playing against 10 men made us think that we would go onto win the game but as sometimes happens against 10 men we didn’t really probe or pass well enough to break down the experienced Hadleigh defence.
Hadleigh took a deserved lead when a ball from their midfield found their forward in the box to give Hadleigh the advantage once again. This was cancelled out by a 25 yard shot from the edge of the box by KIRK HARDY to bring us level.
It looked like the game was going to finish in a draw when a long ball split our defence, John Griggs made a good save but the ball rebounded off a defender cruelly into the net to give Hadleigh the win 3-2.
This was a good test and a lesson to the lads that they have to be consistent and do the easy things well, our passing needs to get back to the quality we showed last week and our work rate all over the pitch needs to improve. I’m sure they will as this was only our second game of the pre-season campaign, we had quite a few new faces and several away on holiday.
Ryan
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