This weekend was a good weekend.
Saturday's 5-0 demolition of Eton, away from home on a tough surface - in a cup semi-final no less - must go down as one of the performances of the season, in a campaign in which we have consistently delivered to a very high level. The frustration felt in yesterday's 3-2 defeat on a foreign surface (astro turf) away to Wellington really shouldn't take away from that. Ultimately, the possibility of an unprecedented treble remains - something which, I'd imagine, is true of very few teams, at any level of football, up and down the country.
One of the great things about the 3s this year is the manner in which we have found ways to win all kinds of football matches. If the unavoidable truth that the playing surface at Eton more closely resembled Aintree at 4 30 on Saturday afternoon than any sort of pitch fit to showcase the finest footballing talents of the Arthurian League made the fact that all 5 of our goals came from set-pieces less surprising, it certainly made the feat no less impressive. As a team that prides itself on playing 'proper' football, its nice to know that we have the ability and the nous to mix things up and find other ways to find the net.
Two penalties from Charlie Nash (both dispatched with aplomb), two long throws from George (forced over the line by Ben Moss and Rich Greensmith) and a corner audaciously back-heeled home by Nick Wilkinson showed we can still revert back to the ways of the Old Fentonians era when required. In fact, it would have been rude of Dolly to head home when unmarked from 3 yards out as it simply wouldn't have been in keeping with the theme of the day. Equally impressive though was the rearguard action which barely allowed Eton a sniff all day, and what was pleasing was the way that at 2 and 3 - 0 we continued to attack and refused to sit back on our lead as we have occasionally been guilty of doing in recent weeks. The back-four was the ideal one to deal with the long ball assault leveled at us in the second half, and, when called upon, John Jenkins was ready as ever to make a fantastic save. Ed Goldmith and Charlie Nash dove-tailed well to mask the absence of Mike Sanchez, while wide-boys Ruddsy, Kibbs and Frenchy all used the ball effectively and looked a constant threat on the break. Ben, Dolly and Gus, as ever, dominated the midfield battle never allowing Eton a foothold in the match, before setting our regular attack waves calmly on their way with some intelligent passing. GCR may have just edged the MoM voting for his significant contributions at both ends of the field - so long as we overlook his 'macho' shove in the second half after being blind-sided by an opponent.
Ultimately it was a great display all-round resulting in a fantastic win. We should be very proud of our progress to the final.
Following that, Sunday was always going to be tough. Hamstrung by a number of mitigating circumstances including the unfamiliar astro surface, a somewhat threadbare 12-man squad (9 of whom had featured heavily on Saturday) after a couple of late and unavoidable withdrawals and the inevitably heavy legs we were carrying, I think we can be proud of our performance. Yes, it would have been nice to get the league sewn up, but the fact remains that we will have more opportunities to do so.
Tiredness was apparent was we slipped to a two goal lead in the first 20 minutes, but the reaction was a spot on, and should give us real optimism going forward. At 2-0 down, fatigued as we were, we could have crumbled, but, with our backs-to-the-wall we really showed what we were made of and drag the game back. After leveling up at 2-2 with goals from Ed Greensmith (though Rich Greeno would beg to differ) and a James Kibbey header (yes, really), anyone watching would have thought there could only be one winner. But that wasn't to be and a cruel slice of luck saw a double deflection squirm past John Jenks with just 6 or 7 minutes remaining. Again we roared back at them and, if your captain for the day could finish we might well have snatched the draw we needed to secure the title at the last - which is a great testament to all involved. Nasher played very well and provided some great attacking threat, but MoM clearly went to returning hero Adam Dolman. Unfortunately his reward for his fine performance wasn't a medal or MoM champagne, but a huge number of astro burns on his legs from the number of sliding tackles he put in. Wear those scars with pride Del - you were top draw!
Onwards and upwards from here gents... Its all to play for. The treble is still very much ON. That said, we've won nothing yet...!
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