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Town slump against local rivals

Coalville Town 2nd XI  0  Loughborough Town 2nd XI  2

Bodykraft 2nd XI East Midlands Premier Division

  A depleted Town 2^nd X1 slumped to their second successive 2 – 0 defeat in the derby match against their near neighbours with an indifferent display of hockey against a team not much better than themselves.

Missing two of their midfield driving force, Town took an initial hold on the game taking play to the visitors, however early raids on the Loughborough goal failed to penetrate the back line.  Skipper Tony Crowie took on the pivotal midfield role but found few around him capable of helping him in the early stages and his efforts were snuffed out by superior numbers of visitors around him. 

Scott Meadows was managing to find a way down the right flank, but his crosses into the dee were easily cut out by the visitors defending in numbers and depth. The two front strikers, Niki Arnold and Darren Ward, were finding it difficult to get hold of the ball and when they did, superior numbers foiled any further action.

  Once the initial play had been checked, Loughborough’s quicker midfield play began to take over and it was they who took control of the game’s first half as it went on. Skillful play from the back and through the middle cut through the Town middle order, but as with the home side, they found it difficult to penetrate the home defence, where at the heart they found Carl Marshall and Ian Wright in dominant form. 

The match was beginning to be played between the two 16 metre lines as neither team could find a way through. However Loughborough ended the first half very much on top, although for all of their dominance, keeper Joel Barker in the Town goal did not have one shot to stop.

  The second half started with the visitors on the attack however Town quickly subdued the early play and took play back into the visitors half. Sensing an early breakthrough, Town were piling players forward but were caught with a sucker punch as the visitors broke quickly out of their half and following some good interplay between the forwards, Loughborough’s quick young centre forward found himself one on one with Barker to put them one up. 

This seemed to drive Town forward and they began to play with more purpose. The two wide defensive backs, Richard Wright and Mick Clarke, began to find some space and were combining well with the midfield but Town still came up against a resolute visitors defence. 

After 15 minutes, Arnold, who was having a difficult time, took a pass from Ward and unleashed a tremendous shot from just inside the dee only to see the keeper make a super save, and Arnold returned the compliment a few minutes later only to see Ward fire wide from 10 yards out, but these chances were really as near as they got for the rest of the game.

Desperation began to creep in and some niggly tackles were coming in from both sides. Skipper Crowie was still finding support hard to come by and his exuberance saw him take some admonishment from the umpires, and his desperation finally found fault with the visiting umpire with five minutes to go, as he received a yellow card for one late tackle too many. 

With one man short and their main driving force in midfield, the visitors took over and finished the game off with a second goal three minutes from time to take the game out of Towns reach. A really disappointing start to the season and Town will need to show some improvement on the opening two games when they face a difficult trip to Players next week.