Our 2nd meeting with Ashburton this season and this time on home ground. Cool and overcast conditions were the order for the day, some light rain falling in the 2nd half. Last time these 2 sides met it was a convincing 10 nil victory for Box Hill. As such the boys seemed very casual in their approach to the game, as was evident in their lack of urgency. Although the majority of play was taking place in Box Hill's forward half, it took until about the 20 minute mark before we managed to convert a goal.
We were passing the ball quite nicely, but we just didn't seem to have any fire in our bellies. A complete opposite to how we played last week against Whitehorse. As such we were lack lustre in finishing and Ashburton were able to defend our many forays into the box. Half time arrived and we had 2 goals to show for our efforts, another 3 or 4 should have found the back of the net if we were switched on.
The 2nd half continued much the same way as the first half, with Ashburton relying on the long ball through midfield as their main plan of attack. Once again we were stuck in 2nd gear and our defense was not showing any real urgency to clear the ball. This resulted in a series of unnecessary corners for Ashburton and courtesy of some sloppy defending we allowed them an easy goal, possibly an own goal....but no one has owned up to it yet.
Ashburton lifted and started to mount more attacks, but their midfield failed to support their forwards and allowed us to defend in numbers. Slowly we started to become more interested and some good passages of play followed. Another 2 goals went past the Ashburton Keeper and Kosi was very unlucky not to convert from an exceptional header.
So a 4/1 victory for Box Hill in what can best be described as token effort. We have the Bentleigh Greens tournament in a few weeks and the lads will need to sharpen their focus and intensity to match teams like Sandringham and Monash.
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