We watched Cummings warm up until he tried the tricky manoeuvre of pulling up his socks and he tweaked an aging hamstring.
What we needed was a level-headed, steady, pillar of a
defender to take his place at left back. Killick turned to the obvious choice,
Cann.
Poole started well with Elliott getting plenty of ball, and
success, on the right. Cann and Davies both had early opportunities, the first
being struck over the bar on the volley and the second a good side step and low
shot well saved by the keeper.
Then on 13 minutes, Wimborne had their first attack.
Davidson got hold of the ball on the right and charged
forward. As he approached the box he cut inside and fired the ball past Thomas
in goal to put the visitors ahead 0-1
What we were all expecting was a fierce response from the
home side but it seemed we had 2 halves of a team instead of one coherent unit
One half of the team seemed content to hoof the ball up
front and just hope something happened. The other, wiser half, played through
the strength of the team, the midfield, to move the forward.
Trouble was, Poole couldn’t seem to make its mind up which course
to pursue and as a result did neither very well. Players’ touches seemed heavy
and final balls never quite made it to
the intended recipient
Wimborne, one league below the hosts, bossed the first half
with a lot of good play down both wings with both Poole full backs seemingly
happy to let their wingers cut inside and have a shot but Thomas was equal to
all that was thrown at him.
In fact, it was Poole that created the next best chance on
30 minutes as Steve “Archie Gemmill” Devlin danced past 4 defenders and as we
all shredded our programs to recreate that Argentina ticker-tape experience he
was just nudged as he shot and the ball tamely dribbled into the keeper
Less than a minute later, their number 9 burst through the
defence and skilfully rounded the keeper. All he had to do was knock the ball
into the empty net. Actually, that wasn’t all he had to do, he also had to take
the ball with him. A step he seemed to forget and when he moved back to regain
the ball, enough of the defence were back to snuff out the danger.
Wimborne finished the half the stronger, and despite a late
chance when both Byerley and Elliott swung at the ball and clipped the bar from
12 yards out, Wimborne were worthy of their lead
Half Time 0-1
The second half started after the quickest half time ever
(referee clearly on a promise) and Killick’s half time talk had obviously had
an effect.
Preston had clearly been marked as the main outlet and he
started to terrorize their right back
This had the knock on effect in that the more the defenders
moved towards him, the more space was created for the rest of the team.
Cann saw this space on 55 minutes as he used Preston as his
dummy runner and charged forward. A
one-two at the edge of the box gave him the chance to shoot but off balance,
the keeper saved easily
A minute later, Preston skipped past his marker as he
slipped and fired a cross from the left. Byerley came charging in and smashed
the ball low only for the keeper to make an unbelievable point blank save with
his leg – sending the ball wide for a corner.
He almost hit the ball too well, a scuff would probably have
scored – maybe this wasn’t going to be our day
Just as we were all wondering how close the ball had to be
before it would go in, we found out.
On 62 minutes, Preston again burst through and sent a
defence splitting ball out wide to Elliott. He crossed low and hard into the
box and from fully 4 inches Byerley smashed the ball in.
In fairness, it hit the roof of the net so in some respects
maybe it was just as well it wasn’t 5 inches out :-)
I did feel sorry for Wazza though as he couldn’t give us all
the goal scoring routine he’d been practising for months as his studs got
caught up in the net and he lay there like a trussed up chicken
At that point the tannoy announcement was that if the game
was level at full time, the game would go straight to penalties.
At the time I couldn’t work out whether the game being
extended was a threat or a promise. It was the former.
As the regulars got subbed out the play, somehow, became
even more disjointed from Poole and Wimborne resorted to the long ball hit and
hope.
The one ray of class shown was by Turner as he fought to
regain a ball, then turned his defender inside out before unleashing a venomous
shot, well saved to the keeper’s right.
Full Time 1-1
All of a sudden there was a skirmish to my left. Brett
Pitman had heard the word penalty and the only way Charlie Daniels and Cummings
could stop him from taking them all was by wrestling him to the ground and
sitting on his chest
Wimborne started the penalties and with Cann, Preston and
Turner all scoring easily to keep the scores level at 3-3, the pressure was
mounting.
This proved too much for the 4th Wimborne penalty
taker who went for power and rammed the ball down the middle, only to find that
Thomas hadn’t moved and the ball struck him for the vital save
Elliott put Poole 4-3 up for the first time and once
Wimborne had levelled the score with their final penalty, it was up to Byerley
to take the final one
Up he stepped and coolly slotted the ball to the keeper’s
right to win the game 5-4
Summary – A poor quality game that no-one really deserved to
win. At half time a friend told me he’d seen worse – I’m still not convinced
that wasn’t the drink talking. Poole looked so much better when playing the
ball on the deck through the middle but unfortunately the rush to get the ball forward
stopped this from happening as often as it should
Star Performer – Dibba – I was so pleased when I saw he was
playing as normally, with him in the team the report usually just writes itself
– but today he was an absolute rock. Commanding in the air and assured on the
floor – best game I’ve seen him play by a country mile
