Hallsy's Academy Report - Week 12

"Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory" was the quote of the day from coach Dave Hall after the 1st XI unexplicably gave away a comfortable lead to lose 5-3 to local rivals Chichester College. Worthing started the game in positive mood and took to the diffuclt playing conditions better than their local opponents, by again playing the more attractive football but just missing out on the final piece of the jigsaw (goals). The opener came after defender George Dowell took it upon himself to shoot and shoot he did after beating a couple of opponents. 1-0.

Worthing began to dominate and looked relatively comfortable and at times played some excellent passing football, for which we have become renound for. However warning shots were fired with the home defence again being beaten by one ball only for James Fernandes to deny the Chichester striker not once, but twice. As the half grew Chichester became more confident and against the run of play equalised. From an outswinging corner the ball was only half cleared and the ball was returned with interest into the top corner (with a little bit of slice!). 1-1.

The response was first rate. Worthing seemed to go straight down the other end and restore their lead. Jordan Clark's shot was only parried for the returning Luke Jearum to knock the ball past the desparing keeper. 2-1. That was how it stayed until half time.

Surely now Worthing's only enemy is conplacency? Was it going to rear its ugly head?? The answer to that question is coming up...

Chichester started the half brightly and quicker restored parity. A long throw in was poorly defended and ended up with the ball finishing up in the top corner of the net. 2-2. Again Worthing responded well and played some exicitng football, but lacking clinical finishing Worthing couldn't put light between themselves and their visitors. Worthing did however scored an exceptional third goal with Dowell playing a short free kick to winger Ben Standing, who put in a tantilising cross for top scorer Alex Staines to notch his 11th goal of the season. 3-2.

From this point on until 8 minutes from time Worthing were extremely comfortable and could have extended their lead, however they ended up giving an experts guide to "how to lose a game in 8 minutes". However in conclusion this could be a positive indicator as to ensure that all players are grounded and not having the attitude of "thinking you are better that you actually are" and I'm hopeful that the ideal time to put this right is tomorrow in the ECFA National Cup.

Within Hallsy's Academy Report guest writers now have the opportunity to report on the 2nd XI team action. This week its the turn of defender Iain Haggart.

The 2nd 11 took on East Berkshire this week.
The squad was weakened due to injuries to Thom Taylor, Matt Dodd was called up to the 1st team and Zaki Rahman had an exam. Due to this problem we sorted the situation out by playing captain for the game Iain Haggart in midfield with Tomas Nemeth, Des O’Connor and Phil Charman.

The game was originally scheduled to be played at the fortress Worthing United but an hour before the meet time the game was moved to the back of the leisure centre due to United not wanting us to ruin their pitch before the weekend.
East Berkshire weren’t impressed with this due to the fact they had drove to United only to find out they were playing at the leisure centre. When they arrived at the leisure centre quite a large amount of the players looked awfully familiar to us. The reason was because they decided to bring down at least half of their 1st team ,(including Kenwyne Jones) who our 1st team beat in the national cup earlier this season.

The game began on a rather sloppy start for both teams possibly due to the heavy, boggy pitch conditions which made it hard to find a killer pass or get enough of a foothold in the pitch to make the breaks.
The first goal was scored around the mid point of the half and went to the away team. The ball was chipped over the top to the striker and he was allowed to turn on the edge of the box and shot scoring off the inside of the post.
This brought Worthing to life and once Iain and Tomas started getting the ball wide to Des and Phil there was more threat to the away goal, with Phil, Ezio, and Paul all came close to scoring. But towards the end of the half we got caught again letting the striker have too much room on the edge of the box and he scored in the bottom left of the goal just out of the reach of keeper Gillard.
Worthing continued to press for the final 10 minutes of the half and almost had an equaliser just on half time via a thumping header by Haggart from a corner but the keeper, who was their 1st team keeper, pulled of a world class save to his left to deny the goal after Haggart had rose excellently amongst a crowd of players, another day or another keeper and it would have been 2-1 at halftime.

The 2nd half began on a bad note with us conceding straight from kick off. A long ball over the top wasn’t dealt with and allowed the striker to have an easy finish. Worthing though after this dominated the rest of the match after that early goal and a new formation of 4-3-3 helped prevent any more chances for the away team allowing us to be more attacking up front. Chances continued to come but the ball wouldn’t fall in the correct position or go the correct side of the post and you thought it just wasn’t going to be our day.
This was until the yet again impressive Tomas Nemeth played a long ball towards the corner for Paul Jackson. It looked impossible for him to get anywhere seeing as he had two defenders closing in on him but after seeing Nani at the weekend replicated
one of his tricks by nut megging one defender and running round the other defender and shot past the keeper to make it 3-1.
However this was the last real piece of action in the game and the away side shut the game down and ended up losing 3-1. However on a positive note with the squad we had and the way we played in the 2nd half we can be happy with the performance against the best team we have played this season and with a full strength squad I believe the result would have gone our way.

So onwards and upwards to all and thanks to Iain for his report.

Cheers,

Hallsy