Contrasting fortunes for the Hatters
I DIDN’T think a goal was ever going to come and when it did I thought the flood gates would open.
Thankfully Jason Oswell delivered the only goal of the match and then the visiting keeper and his net lead a charmed life.
We have a decent record against the “Holy Blues”, we did the double over them last season winning both games 1-0 and they, while scoring a few goals their points tally showed that they, like Leamington, were a team we could beat and pre-match thoughts were that we’d win comfortably.
Ben McKenna and Sam Walker started for the first time and along with Matty Warburton took a hold of the game that they never relinquished; Jimmy Ball looks to be enjoying the role Jim’s playing him in while at the back Chris Smalley, Michael Clarke never gave the visitors a chance.
We dominated the game on Saturday in every department you’d care to mention. The statistics speak for themselves we had 20 shots on target they had 1, we had the vast majority of the ball going forward and when the time came to slow things down we had the ability to do that too.
The game was totally one way throughout the 90 plus minutes and how it ended 1-0 is beyond me?
Tom Walker almost made a dream start but he hit the post, Chris Smalley headed against the bar not long after, Sam Minihan had a shot turned onto the post after a great shot while in between Darren Stephenson missed the mother of all open goals, (he’ll be having nightmares about that for weeks) while the Cheadle End were on their feet already celebrating.
On Monday we chanced our arm with the Bank Holiday traffic and hit the road to Tamworth where we just didn’t compete to the same level as we did earlier in the previous game.
Injuries meant we were down to the bare bones of a team and we had to contest with the shenanigans of the Lambs manager, Andy Morrell.
We started brightly but as soon as they equalised we lost shape and the ability to find a White shirt.
Ben Hinchliffe was our man of the match for several excellent saves that kept the score down. To sum up then, two games of contrast meant two steps forward and one step back.