Date: 30-Aug-08
Competition: League
Scorers: David McKean
Man of the Match: Paul Rollo
Match Report
Hamilton Harvest suffered their first defeat of the 2008/09 season after they went down 4-1 to Westwood BB. There were 4 absentees from the team that had defeated Motherwell the week before, with Dave Lowe, Gizzy, Shanksy and William all missing.
Hamilton lined up in a 4-4-2 formation with Shug in goals, right to left in defence was Omar, Daryl, Hammy, & Hawky right to left in midfield was Yusef, Paul, Tony & Gareth and up front was David McKean & Alex Dick. Aiky started on the bench.
The game started with Westwood getting the ball down and passing it about with ease, Harvest were competing well with a team who had years of 1^st division experience behind them and it was Harvest who carved out a great opportunity to open the scoring. A through ball by David to Alex saw him beat the offside trap, as the goalie came out Alex rounded him, Alex took touch to steady himself as he had ran the ball a little wide and when he hit shot the Westwood defender made it back on to the line and blocked the goal bound effort.
Westwood then took the lead in the 27^th minute when a long throw in to the box wasn’t dealt with properly and when the ball broke it fell straight to a Westwood player 12 yards out and despite Shug getting a hand to the shot the ball nestled in to the bottom right hand corner. That was a blow to Hamilton who had defended well up until that point.
Westwood made it 2-0 4 minutes later when a long punt up the field by the goalkeeper was flicked on by one of the Westwood strikers, the ball fell straight to his striking partner who took it first time and lobbed it over Shug who was advancing from his goal. Harvest then woke up and dominated play for the remainder of the half, however despite putting the Westwood back line under pressure and winning a concession of corners they couldn’t put the ball in the net and some last ditch defending kept the score at 2-0.
Just has the half was coming to a close Westwood nicked another goal and made it 3-0, a long throw in was flicked on at the near post the ball was nodded about in the box as both sets of players were playing head tennis, eventually the ball fell to a Westwood player who was standing 3 yard from goal and he prodded the ball in to the net. Despite the efforts of Harvest especially in the last 15 minutes of the half they went in 3-0 down at half time.
After a stern half time team talk Harvest started the better side in the 2^nd half and pulled a goal back in the 50^th minute when good play from Hawky in the midfield saw him advance with the ball, he played a great ball in to the box to Yusef feet, Yusef quickly turned the ball round the corner to David McKean and he coolly slotted the ball past the keeper in to the bottom corner. Harvest were now lifted by this goal and pressed for another but as they were doing so Westwood regained their 3 goal lead in the 55^th minute when neat work down the left saw the ball being cut inside the Westwood midfielder quickly spotted the run of a team mate and he slipped a great through ball in to his path, as Shug rushed from his goal to narrow the angle, the Westwood player passed the ball across the face of the goal in to the path of his team mate who had an easy task of tapping the ball in to the net, there was more that a hint of offside about the goal, however Harvest appeals feel on deaf ears as the ref awarded the goal.
Harvest then went on to dominate the remainder of the second half, there was a big improvement in the passing and some of the Play was fantastic, however despite all our effort the ball just wouldn’t go in, anything dangerous in to the Westwood box was cleared or picked up by the goalkeeper.
Westwood were the reduced to 10 men when Alex latched on to a through ball, as he bore down on goal the Westwood defender pulled him down, the referee had no choice but to send the defender off as he was the last man, Harvest were awarded a free kick but nothing came of it. Westwood were still dangerous on the attack but Harvest coped well with their attacks. As the game wore on it was evident that Harvest were not going to score as Westwood managed to thwart any chances at the last minute. The final whistle went with the score at 4-1. Most of the guys will tell you that maybe 4-1 wasn’t a true reflection on the game as there were a lot of positives to be taken from the 2^nd half performance in particular. Harvest are learning quickly that if you give the teams in the 1^st division a sniff at goal you will be punished. We can’t afford to give away cheap goal in the 1^st division and expect to win games. Hopefully we can take our 2^nd half performance in to next weeks game and pick up another 3 points.