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17 February 2007

Lions roar too loud for fifths

Northampton Lions 4th XI  3  Coalville Town 5th XI  0

DTZ Central League South East Division Two

Coalville turned in a patchy display as they were beaten by a strong Northampton Lions side on Saturday.

Town started the game well and threatened to over-run their opponents, with the energetic Adam Lloyd and Adam Martin working hard in the centre of the park.

But Northampton had a couple of players with a little more experience than Town, and this came to the fore as the game wore on. After around 25 minutes of the first half, the home side took the lead from a penalty corner, although Coalville would question an umpiring decision requiring an earlier penalty corner to be retaken after the ball didn't go out of the circle before a shot at goal.

Town remained a goal down at half time, and again started the second half well, playing the ball around and starting to find a bit of rhythm to their play. But Coalville continued to have an annoying habit of holding onto the ball or trying to beat one more player than they should have which is not how Town have been successful this season.

Northampton doubled their lead shortly afterwards, and Coalville heads dropped a little bit. But Tom Sloan and Liam Bates at the centre of Town's defence continued to battle as Northampton came forward, and Coalville eventually began to get more of the play again.

Chances soon came for Town, with James Dumelow firing a penalty corner wide and Matt Wooldridge seeing a shot a well saved. Martin also went close with another effort.

But Town were soon caught on the break as they lost the ball in the Northampton half and a player broke forward down the right and crossed into the dee for a team mate to slide home at the far post.

Declan Turner and Sam Edwards continued to work hard up to the final whistle for Town, but it wasn't to be Coalville's day and they'll hope to do better this weekend when Melton visit King Edward VII College.