Upstarts 2 - Panthers 1

As I stood at the half way line as we were 2-1 up with 8 minutes to go, (with all the other Upstarts girls, who like me, are terrified of defending short corners), I was hastily rehearsing my apologies to the team for being involved in three of the worst goal scoring balls-ups of the entire season. We should have been 5-1 up (or maybe 6-1 up Bruce?) and cruising, but no, we were hanging on and defending like crazy to take all three points.

Thankfully, our defence held out magnificently and my pathetic speech remained undelivered.

We started the match on the back foot as Panthers gave us an exhibition of their quick passing and positional dominance. Yes, their nine training sessions a week were clearly reaping rewards in keeping possession, but they were not necessarily getting any closer to our goal.

As always, Kev was an absolute rock at the back. Whenever they got a rare shot away, he just knew where it was going and effortlessly palmed or kicked it away. The rareness of the shots was clearly down to the solidity of our defence. Davy, Kaniaru, Donny, Skiller, Alan and Rob didn't put a foot wrong all day, and calmly passed the ball out to our midfielders, or on occasion, Donny would tw@t it through the midfield at such a pace that if our forwards didn't pick it up, it caused immense damage to the wall and fence at their end of the pitch.

This went on for about 20 minutes or so. Then a moment of pure genius. Gary picked up the ball at around the half way line on the right and easily beat two Panthers, who were clearly tired from all the training, and passed it up to me in their twenty five. I somehow managed to control it, sort of, and pass it back to the still running Tavares. Gary picked the ball up cleanly and fired it into the net. It was definitely one of our goals of the season and it left the Panthers stunned. We had beaten their well orchestrated defence with a move of sheer brilliance. The Argentinian girls would have been proud of that one. Clearly, our training sessions were paying off too.

That took us to half time, where we sort of stood around a bit and modestly told each other how slightly above average we were.

In the second half, that man Bruce came on and quickly astounded us all with a mazy run past three Panthers on the left, before deftly passing it on to Ross on the edge of the D. I'm not sure what happened then, but two minutes later he did it again. This time though, I think it all ended up with a short corner and Gary blasted it in under their keeper. 2-0 up and we were in a strong position.

A few minutes later, Pete picked the ball up on the right, fired it over to Ross on the edge of the D who in turn, expertly played it onto Bruce who was waiting at the far post with the line to beat. 'Why don't I get chances like that?' I cried from the bench, as the ball continued towards the corner flag following Brucies' freshy.

I wish I'd have kept my mouth shut.

By this time, Panthers were pushing up and leaving big gaps at the back. Then the nightmares began.

Rather than dwell on the two unconverted two on ones Ross and I had, and the one unconverted one on one I had against their keeper, I'd like to reiterate how well our defence and midfield played on Saturday. You basically won the game for us. Donny's disciplined stint in the middle at the back gave us the structure for the other defenders to work around.

At the other end, I single handedly F***ed up all three opportunities with amazing ease. I would have happily left the stadium with three TW@T sticks instead of just one, but at the end of the day, as I just mentioned, the game was won by our defence and two great goals (again) by Gary.

In addition, JT, Kirk, Bruce, Pete, Ross and Keir ran tirelessly throughout the match and basically shut out their allegedly very strong midfield.

But my mind just keeps going back to standing on that halfway line as Panthers had got one back, and were on a roll with yet another short corner...............the ordinarily polite Kirk came over to me and said something along the lines of 'Trussell, you're supposed to put in the net you ********* ******* ******* ********* **cker. I didn't argue with him.

We mustn't forget Johnny, who also had an excellent game on the bench. Nursing a torn hamstring and an extremely dodgy pair of sunglasses, he valiantly let the rest of us take the victory. He'll be back next game for sure.

Anyway, we won, and we're top of the league with a four point lead.

So we're DLWWWWWWWWWWW

Assuming Panthers don't slip up, we need two more W's from these three remaining games.

Sun 8 March vs Rebels 12.30pm
Sun 15 March vs Police 12.30pm
Sun 22 March vs Chameleons 12.30pm

NONE of the above games will be easy. We'll take each one as it comes, and let's get some fitness training in during our week off. We want to finish this campaign in style.

I'll email out for availability a week today for the Rebels game. Ross and Bruce - do you think the three of us need to practice in front of goal just a little bit before then?

Phil