There was, however, a lack of urgency for large spells of the first 45, and we were left to rue our wastefulness when Sporting managed to even up the numbers thanks to some late arrivals.
The fresh legs and parity of numbers gave Sporting fresh impetus, and they started to stroke the ball around the pitch to good affect. They managed to pull the score back to 2-2, and then took the lead late in the second-half, and in all honesty we only had ourselves to blame for letting them back in to the match. The fact is we should have had the game won in the first-half. But our casual approach play meant we never really took hold of the game in that spell.
Amazingly, it was when we were under the most pressure that we really started to play our best football. From back to front, our passing when under pressure was very good, playing triangles, balls across the lines, and then looking for the decisive forward pass all suddenly came together and thankfully for us it was just in time. There could not have been more than 5 minutes left on Henry's watch when we suddenly sparked in to life and grabbed two quick fire goals and so securing the victory. Phil Caldwell in particular was instrumental in our late surge, and can rightly feel very satisfied with a performance that saw him claim two assists and come very close to scoring himself on more than one occasion.
The MOTM went to Phill Arnold though, who was run very close by Phil Caldwell, Luke Fallon and Neill Robertshaw in particular. Phill again showed how crucial it is to have a calm touch on the ball at the back, with his distribution and timely interceptions again providing the benchmark for the rest of the team.
I said after the game that it felt like we had grabbed a victory from the jaws of victory, I can't think of a better way to sum up what was, at times, a quite bizarre performance from us!
Well done all on a deserved win, but let's try and make it a bit easier on ourselves in future!
Keep the faith!
Joe
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