No repeat of frustrating August clash
BACK in August we lost to Walsall 2-1.
It was a game we dominated but we conceded to the home side’s only two shots in the 90 minutes.
There were times on Saturday, especially in the first half, when I thought that history was going to repeat itself. Even more so when they equalised so soon after we’d opened the scoring.
As it was we ran out winners and by some margin.
There was a touch of the Mansfield about this game; the Saddlers were the form team over the previous six games with a couple of good away wins.
We, with our squad decimated by injury, were down to the bare bones and looking fragile, but the men in blue were determined and resolute and played their socks off.
We had the lion’s share of the ball in the first half and had a couple of great efforts on goal. Odin Bailey’s early header was just one of a handful of great saves by Jackson Smith, the Walsall keeper.
So we had to wait until added time before we got our just reward. After some lovely close control the ball found its way to Akil Wright who hit the sweetest of shots from 25 yards into the corner of the net.
We were on our way, but not quite. Deeper into added time the visitors won a corner and wouldn’t you know it they bagged an equaliser.
The second half was just 10 minutes old when Callum Camps hit a sumptuous free kick, the ball looked to have hit both crossbar, post and goal line, did it cross the line? It doesn’t matter as Tanto headed the ball into the back of the net just to make sure.
This time we didn’t sit on our laurels, we piled on the pressure.
Ethan Bristow had a brilliant debut, Connor Lemonheigh Evans looked like the player we all thought he could be, Camps was pulling the midfield strings, in fact all over the pitch a County player had the upper hand on their individual opponent, we were looking unbeatable again.
In the 75th minute Connor was once again flying, it seemed the only way to stop him was to haul him down, which is exactly what happened, the subsequent penalty was scored by Paddy and from there we ran the game down.
Nick Powell showed off with some truly audacious passing, the defence stood solid and we find ourselves top of the division, where we’ve been for three months now and on this performance I see no reason why we won’t be there in another three months.