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Ryan Owens reports on his side's 1-4 home defeat against Stanway Rovers on Tuesday 11 September
With the same squad that faced Woodbridge on Saturday, we welcomed Stanway Rovers to Stoneylands in what proved to be a tough bruising encounter. Stanway are renowned for being a tough tackling no-nonsense team so the team was ready for a hard fought game against last year's Reserve league winners.
The game started at a frenetic pace with both teams trying to gain a foothold. The game was quite scrappy with neither side settling into their passing. The deadlock was broken when Tony French was adjudged to have been fouled in the penalty area to give Melford the chance of taking the lead from the penalty spot. Up stepped Captain MARK ARNOLD to rifle the ball home to give Melford the lead.
The disputed goal gave Stanway a lift and from a Melford free kick on the edge of the Stanway penalty area, the ball was launched 50 yards into the path of the Stanway forward who held off Steve Arnold before firing under Stefan Robson in the Melford goal to put Stanway level.
Losing the goal was bad enough but soon after we lost captain Mark Arnold with a heel injury. this was then compounded as in the act of Stanway scoring their second goal, keeper Stefan Robson was clouted by a heavy challenge from the Stanway forward which resulted in him being replaced by able stand in - Anthony Clarke. Stefan was led to the changing room where the paramedics were called just to make sure that everything was in order.
The game continued with Stanway having more of the play, however a good ball forward finding Tony French on the wing resulted in another player getting injured as Frenchy was taken out after delivering a cross into the box which left him with an ankle injury that he couldn't shake off.
With 3 key injuries before the first half was over, Stanway pressed home their advantage when another 50 yard long ball was set upon by the Stanway forward to slide the ball under the replacement Melford goal keeper, to give Stanway a half time lead of 3-1.
The team responded to the half time team talk, the second half started a lot better than the first ended. We were more competitive and got a lot closer to the Stanway midfielders who were pulling the strings in the first half. Several challenges were made that the referee deemed unfair with yellow cards being shown to Carl Cook and Ross Swain.
It looked like the second half was going to end all square but a late tackle by Ross Swain in the Melford penalty area resulted in the referee pointing to the spot. Up stepped the Stanway player to slot home the penalty, however, he didn't count on Super sub Goalkeeper Anthony Clarke making 2 wonder saves first from the initial shot then the follow up shot, Unfortunately the second save fell to another Stanway player who slotted the ball home to give Stanway a 4- lead and ultimately the 3 points!
The result was disappointing but also the manner in which we let in 3 goals from long balls of more than 50 yards each time. I have also learnt as well that when you have the opportunity to take advantage of the first team not having a game you should take it.
Myself and Mark decided to give everybody in the squad the chance to play against Stanway but in hindsight it may have been better to use some of the first team squad to give us a bit more experience when the going got tough. It's a mistake I don't think we'll make in the future.
The lads all know that we need to improve and improve quickly. We have two tough games coming up against Wivenhoe and then the following Wednesday evening against local rivals AFC Sudbury. We must show the determination to compete against these teams otherwise we could be on the end of some demoralising results. It would also be good to get all the injured players back as we are running on bare bones at the moment .
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