Easter brace has Hatters well poised
THE Easter weekend got off to a bang with a great win away in Nailsworth, the home of Forest Green Rovers.
There had been some early morning worries due to a “precautionary” 10am pitch inspection. The Flyer held on, waiting for a thumbs up from the referee, thankfully the rain held off and we were away.
The New Lawn isn’t the worst ground we’ve visited this season but it is one of the oddest!
We had the whole of one uncovered side and a raised section that held around 100 seats with a roof, I managed a covered seat, which I was very grateful for as the rains came.
The weather didn’t have any effect on the players, thankfully.
We dominated the game from start to finish, if proof were needed, the stats showed we had 80 per cent possession, while the home side didn’t register a single shot on target.
Callum Camps opened the scoring with a 30-yard shot that flew into the top corner. The second came less than 10 minutes later when Rico Richards turned in a cross from the edge of the box. The third came at the start of the second half, Connor Evans fired in from close range.
We had other chances, both Paddy and Woots had shots well saved but it didn’t matter, we ran out easy winners and thanks to Mansfield losing, we went back to the top of the table.
Monday’s game should have been a much sterner test and it proved to be so, but for me it wasn’t necessarily down to the ability of AFC Wimbledon but the performance of the referee!
He appeared, at times, to be clueless.
I’m sure Wimbledon had the same thoughts that we did, he was as bad for both sides and I was convinced the game would end 0-0 because he didn’t want any controversy.
The game was decent enough, when it was allowed to flow. The Dons had their chances, the best of which was a missed penalty on the half hour.
We struggled to deal with their “strong arm” tactics and we hardly got to see the free flowing runs from midfield we saw at FGR.
It needed a bit of individual brilliance to win it and that was exactly what we got when Odin Bailey picked up the ball and unleashed a fantastic left foot shot into the side of the Dons net, the EP crowd rose as one as we took another huge step towards automatic promotion.
The next couple of games might just be a little bit exciting.