Duchy 3s Vs Devonport Services Mens 2s

Match Report by Chris Pitt - Vice Captain, Admin Maestro - Duty Sicknote (for today)

Having survived the trek into darkest Cornwall, (passports stamped at the Saltash Border), a much changed Mens 2s lined up against Duchy 3s. Despite the sub standard weather forecast the rain held off and the lesser spotted Yellow Globe was radiating down.

Vice Capt Chris Pitt took the warm up, the usual range of jogging, side steps, and stretches followed by the usual box at the top of the D...all was going well until Chris tried to bury a shot past the excellent new keeper Henry (more on him later) and something in his lower back went "ping". a few stretches and a generous helping of deep heat applied by "new" defensive sub Carl and the game was ready to start....

At the toss Chappers decided to play directly into the sun for the first half, our change strip of Green not making visibility difficult at all......(Gen). A good opening calm(ish) 5 mins followed by a more frenetic 5 mins resulted in Chris Pitt's back giving up the Ghost and a defensive re-org as Carl replaced him for the remainder of the match - Biffed by his own warm up, surely a shoe-in for DoD!

Duchy, in their bright orange were a well organised and structured team, supported by a few subs, and 2 umpires provided by them who had an assessor there doing their final assessments. Their cohesiveness, accompanied by the dreaded Cornish JetLag from DS resulted in some good play and them taking the lead after around 15 mins. 1-0

This roused DS, and following some good passing and pressing play the short corner was won. Following some "faf" Andy Hyder drove strongly back into the D and let rip. 1-1.

Duchy re-grouped quickly and upped their pressure resulting in some good play and a clever finish to make it 2-1. This despite Henry in goal pulling off some notable reflexive saves showing good skill and technique!

After a period of quick passing and some measured attacking, Andy H at CDM, received the ball deep in the DS half, with a swift look up he spotted Riggers in space and launched a 60yd aerial.....good control by riggers and a couple of touches later, boom. 2-2 at half time.

Following a good precise team talk from Chappers with notable contribution from Andy H, clearly identifying what had gone well and what needed to be addressed DS started the second half well. Workrate, movement, and passing were all noticeably better as the half got under way..

Riggers found himself clean through, steadied himself at the top of the D and readied himself to strike however, clearly there was a freak gust of wind, or an unusual "pitch anomaly" (bobble) at the point of impact, which resulted in the shot trickling behind for a 16 to Duchy. Shortly after however, following another long aerial from Andy H, Riggers was again clean through and finished well for DS to take the lead 3-2 with about 15 mins to play.

This lit the blue touchpaper with Duchy, who proceed to press hard with their play, making good use of the space available as DS were finding the going tough. Their dominance in this period led to them winning the inevitable short corner and levelling the scores at 3-3. Keen to push home their advantage at this point they continued to push and despite some great work from the back 5, with some sterling efforts off the bench from James Crossey, some "feisty" challenges from Ryan and some determined tackling from Fred, Duchy took the lead 4-3 with about 7 mins left.

DS dug deep, Kyle's heartrate peaking at 195bpm, they all found their second wind and turned the tables on Duchy. Some concerted pressure led to a late won short corner. Following a smooth inject and great stop from Chappers at top dead-centre of the D Andy Hyder drove home to level the match at 4-4.

With only a few mins left some game management tactics were employed by all, holding the ball or simply "head down smash into space" which did the job and the game finished at 4-4. Of the 2 sides Duchy were probably the more frustrated at only getting 1 point instead of 3 from what was a good match played in the correct manner by 2 determined promotion chasing teams.

MoM voting was carried out in the pub after the games during Teas (excellent thanks Duchy), results as follows:

1st was Henry for an excellent debut performance pulling out some well timed magnificent saves showing a great talent and good technique.
Runners up were Riggers and Andy H.

DoD voting had a clear winner for breaking himself in his own warm up, Chris Pitt. However, there were some surprising names in the running, Kieran's Hernia, Codie, Fred for being Fred, Riggers for dilly-dallying, Andy H for voting for Riggers, and some blokes called Rodney and Trevor??? all had some votes.

In summary this was not the greatest performance of the season for the 2s, whilst they did not play brilliantly, they also didn't play terribly, and it was great to see the whole team call on their reserves to scrap it out for a hard earned draw, maintaining the unbeaten start to the season and the push for promotion.

Back home next week to Bull Point, we will all need our A-game against our local rivals, and fellow promotion chasers PGSOB4s in what will likely be the toughest challenge yet...