Vintage Victorious Over Southgate Magnums
By Paddy Tripp
Southgate Magnums 0 – 3 SHC Vintage
Team: Kotze, Harding, Dunn, White, Bamford, Bishop, Eve, Burles, Beaney C, Sharpe, Cheng, Tripp (DNP), Hitch, Lowe, Wright D. – only five changes this time!
Scorers: Hitch, Burles, Dunn
Player of the Match: Burles
That was wet – normal rain is acceptable but this was something else. It started when we started and stopped about the same time as we did. So up to the marquee and sit down wet to have a beer! AND CELEBRATE ANOTHER WIN.
I have found another way to motivate a player – miss him off the team sheet on the report of the last game. It had a great effect on Bobby Cheng who supplied a perfect pass to Roger Hitch for our first goal – just to make sure he got a mention this week and was not forgotten.
The first ten minutes were not very good and we spent a fair bit of time getting settled. Martin Kotze in our goal gave very strong vocal support to our backline and we eventually settled into an element of teamwork but we still suffer from big build up gaps.
The second half was ours with occasional danger moments but it wasn't until mid way through that we realised that they were down to ten – not sure that half of our side knew at all. But we played better in the half and deserved our two goals. The first came from good partnership work between Chris Beaney and Davis Burles with David finishing well. We did lose our shape a little and at one stage I queried what our full back (Robert Dunn) was doing in their D. The others on the bench could not answer until he scored our third goal!
Even though it was just wet and cold, Southgate did their best to make us welcome and their covid security was in the sternest of hands. The young ladies who ferried the drinks from bar to marquee were very pleasant. Well done team – let's hope we can play together again sometime soon.