Men’s 6s Cruise to Richmond Win
By Frankie Bryant
Men’s 6s 1 – 7 Richmond 4s
The Men's 6s travelled to Richmond for an early start and after some discussion about who has to pay the London low-emission charges for crossing the bridge and an intense warm up the game was ready to start. Having been retired for the past few years I was nervous how my hamstrings would hold up, but luckily there was lots of space on the pitch so no sprinting was needed and after some good passing we won a PC. A bad injection followed by a bad shot followed by a missed rebound led to the ball falling to me about five yards out with a calm finish to lead 1-0.
2-0 soon followed when I once again found the back of the goal from the top of the D… for some reason their GK was outside the goal making me look a lot better than I am. After this I retired again for a while.
More good work led to another PC that was scored by Jabba with a rocket drag flick. The rest of the first half was pretty dire from all on the pitch. Young Sam was causing trouble on debut including a reverse stick effort on goal (which no doubt upset some of the senior players who would prefer to see a v-drag followed by a forehand hit) but failure by all to find the final pass meant we went in 3-0 up at half time.
A lot of talk from captain JJ about shape at half time (although I think he just gets upset when Ravers is not on the pitch). Speaking of Ravers he has an obsession with the 4-2-2-2 formation at the moment (the 6s still play a classic 4-3-3) as he heard new Manchester United coach Ralf has taken inspiration from our 5s to employ this system. He is looking for someone to explain the merits of it to him so feel free to let him know next time you see him.
Similar game in the second half where if we passed the ball we created good chances and scored some goals or missed (lots of misses). We conceded a goal on a counter that left JJ furious that 13 year old Toby couldn't catch up with their speedy forward who then cut back and smashed one past Tony. It was almost like when Stoner passed the ball off the pitch and blamed Toby for not being there... classic behaviour.
Jabba got another goal and two for Wingfield with Sam also getting a debut goal leading to a 7-1 final score. I was then stitched up as the colts were too scared to vote for anyone but me to write the match report. Others called it jug avoidance (ignoring the fact that two others also scored two goals) however two goals for me was more than I managed in the last full season I played and with all muscles still intact I call it a win!