Date: 15-Aug-09
Competition: Friendly
Scorers: Kyle Sneddon, John Barr
Man of the Match: John Barr
Match Report:
Hamilton Harvest continued their pre-season preparations on Saturday when they took on Cartsbridge. Harvest lined up in their usual 4-4-2 formation with Shug in goals, right to left in defence was Daryl, Hammy, Steph and Aiky, right to left in midfield was Yos, John, Rab & Davy with William and Kyle leading the attack. Paul, Omar, James, Sandy & Gibby started the game on the bench, but with rolling subs everyone got a decent run out.
Harvest started the game on the attack as they looked for an early goal and despite dominating the first 20 minutes, playing some neat football and creating a few chances the score remained 0-0. Harvest then took a deserved lead when Hammy played the ball forward in to the feet of Kyle on the 18 yard line, Kyle turned and side footed the ball past the keeper in to the bottom corner to make it 1-0. Harvest continued to dominate the proceedings as they looked for another goal, but could only produce a couple of half chances which came to nothing. With their first attack Cartsbridge snatched an equalizer, when good work down the Harvest right by their left winger saw him hit the bye line and cut the ball back to the striker who made a run to the edge of the 6 yard box and he side footed the ball in to the back of the net to make it 1-1. Harvest continued to dominate and play some great football but couldn’t turn the possession in to goals and it was Cartsbridge who snatched a second goal against the run of play. Harvest had already defended 2 corner kicks but when the third corner kick in a row was flighted to the back post the big Cartsbridge defender peeled off a Harvest defender and rose to bullet his header past Shug to make it 2-1. Harvest continued to press forward and passed up 2 great opportunities in quick succession to get level, the first was shot from Rab from the edge of the box which the keeper managed to turn on to the post and as the ball bobbled about in the box it was eventually cleared to Davy on the left hand side of the Cartsbridge box but his curled shot came crashing back of the crossbar and the danger was eventually cleared. Harvest managed to create 1 more chance before the end of the first half when a deep ball from Aiky found Paul at the back post, his header looped over the keeper but a Cartsbridge defender got back to clear the ball off the line. Despite dominating the first half the teams went in at half time with the score Harvest 1-2 Cartsbridge.
The second half went much the same way as the first with Harvest having most of the possession but failing to find a killer pass that would unlock the Cartsbridge defence. Cartsbridge did come in to the game more in the second half and with a few quick forwards they did pose a threat but Harvest managed to thwart any attacks. All credit to the Cartsbridge defence and keeper as they stood up to attack after attack, and it was their keeper who kept them in the game when Davy turned the defender on the 18 yard line to create some space and fired in his shot which the keeper managed to get a block on and the shot was deflected by the post. Davy was in again after some good exchanging of passes on the edge of the box found him bearing down on goal, but as the keeper came rushing out Davy lifted his shot over him but the ball hit the side netting. Harvest eventually got the equalizer their possession deserved in the 80^th minute and it was a great solo effort from John. He picked up the ball on the half way line and skipped by a few challenges and despite the attempts of the Cartsbridge players John emerged with the ball strode forward and from 25 yards chipped the ball over the top of the Cartsbridge keeper to make it 2-2. Both teams pushed forward in the final minutes looking for a winner but no further clear cut chances were created and the game finished 2-2.
Well done today guys, some of the football was great to watch, we just need to be more ruthless in front of goal. Well done to Kyle and John who scored today, there were plenty of positives to be taken from today’s game especially they way we got the ball on the deck and played football, let’s take these positives in to our last pre-season friendly next week. Only 1 more friendly to go before the start of the league season, so let’s finish our pre-season preparation on a high.