Men's 5th XI Vs Beacon 6

This weekend saw Telford host Beacon and looked to get back to winning ways after their defeat last time out.

It’s important to state that before the report goes on that Beacon did incredibly well under the circumstances of this game. They travelled with only 9 players available compared to Telford’s 14 and should be incredibly proud of how they performed.

This game saw Edward Follos return to 5th team action due to his impressive training & 6th team performances, and Paul Tynan returned to the back line following a few weeks of helping on the sideline.

Telford had pushback and started brightly by winning a short corner within the 1st minute. Alan Brannen injected it to John H at the top of the D who struck it into the goal (we’ll pretend John’s miss hit and bounce of the ball was intentional).

5 minutes later Telford received another short corner in which Coler dispatched it to make it 2-0. Telford were awarded many short corners in the opening 15 minutes of the game but the 14th minute mark saw John K pass it to John H who scored an almost identical goal to the 1st.

A few minutes later Abraham glided past 2 of the beacon players on the right and hit the ball in to Coler who dispatched to match John AB’s tally of 2 goals.

Despite the on field 2 man advantage Beacon had a strong 5 minute spell in which they advanced the ball up the pitch nicely. However the defence of Paul, John K, Freddie & Jacob ensured that nothing was going to trouble Alex.

About half way into the half, Coler received a short corner injection and slipped it to Seth who put it past the keeper. However the ball was deemed to not have left the D and was risked out.

3 minutes before the half time Alan received the ball high up on the left and passed it to captain Ewan who stood in front of the keeper. Ewan attempted his trademark deflection, however the use of “attempted” is key as it didn’t really get any height nor power! Despite this fooling Ewan, it also fooled the keeper who didn’t expect it and could only deflect it back to Ewan who spotted Ed Follos at the far post and Ed calmly pushed it in to make it 5-0 before half time.

Goals were clearly going to follow in the 2nd half, however Ewan made it clear: We must ensure that we’re the only team to score, a game like this can easily become complacent and the opposition can score. Telford have become a very structured and compact defensively sound team, in which half their games have seen them keep clean sheets - A massive improvement from the previous season.

The 2nd half begun and Beacon had decided to pull their keeper out to have 9 outfielders. With this in mind a tactical change was made and the team looked to be more direct in this half to score from deflections and the posts.

Similar to the first half, Telford won an early short corner in which John H received it and slipped it to Ewan who shot and scored to mark his first goal of the season (you heard that right).

On the 42nd minute Tom K had a top of the D shot blocked by a beacon player who was deemed to have prevented a goal via an infringement and Telford were awarded a penalty flick. This was a very strange scenario as Beacon had pulled their keeper to be an outfield, it was mentioned that they could have a player act as a keeper but they decided to decline and Tom K had an open goal to score from (would’ve been pretty embarrassing if he missed).

At this point it was now 7-0 and Beacon, similar to the first half had a good spell of possession and momentum. However on the 60th minute Telford made a swift counter and Alan scored at the back post from a Ewan pass, which saw Ewan gain his 2nd assist of the game.

The frustrations of this game clearly got to one of the young lads on the visitors team as he decided to hit the ball from the restart towards Telford instead of his own team. Tom K controlled this nicely, pounced forward and dribbled past this player, the youngster then decided to swing at Tom K’s “stick” (legs) and was sent off for the remainder of the game.

On the 66th minute Ed ran down the right and hit towards the P spot, Alan cleverly let this go through him as Coler picked the ball up and not only made it 9-0 but marked his first hat trick of the season (Coler had 2 previous games where he scored twice so was very pleased to get this) . 2 minutes later Ed again ran down the wing and found Jack on the left post who made it 10.

As previously mentioned at the start of this report Beacon played exceptionally well for a team at a clear disadvantage so a big well done to those who travelled to Telford.

Onto to Telford’s performance: Even though this was a game Telford would be expected to win, it was very good to see many of the work in training being displayed, from Short corners, teamwork & possession. This was a good victory and will hopefully provide good momentum when they host Leek in 2 weeks time.

M.O.M was given to Ian Cole as he scored a hat trick and marked his 10th goal of the season!

Scorers:

Coler x 3

John H x 2

Ewan x 1

Ed x 1

Tom K x 1

Jack x 1

Alan x 1

Assists:

Ewan x 2

Ed x 2

John H x 1

Abraham x 1

John K x 1