A cool and overcast morning at Wembley Park for today's round 13 encounter with Boroondara. Last time these 2 teams met it was a convincing 7-1 victory to the boys from Canterbury Road. However as we know teams improve as the season progresses, so we began this match as we would any other with the score nil all.
Boroondara have indeed improved since our last match against them and they began the game with vigor and determination, forcing us to defend early. Eventually Box Hill cranked into gear and you could see the boys were warming up like a reliable old heater on a cold Winter's day.
Stackie made a few positional changes today, most noticeably with Alex starting in defence and Aaron D up front with Johnny. As it turned out it was Aaron D who made the first impression on the score sheet, with a well time volley after a ball came in across the box. All the boys were rapped with the result and it was seen as a good omen for Aaron's Dad who is recovering in Hospital from a sudden illness. Get well soon Dom, we all miss you and want you back with us ASAP !
Box Hill had now chugged into about 4th gear and we had control of the match. We kept Boroondara pinned down in their defensive half and apart from the occasional long ball out of defence, they really didn't muster much forward momentum. After a number of well constructed passages of play went begging for a result, we managed to find the back of the net after Johnny laid off a well weighted pass to Jesse, who drew the keeper off his line before neatly chipping the ball over his head.
So 2 nil at the break and we were looking dangerous, but still our finishing is letting us down. Super Coach Dave Stack rallied his young chargers in the change room at half time and asked them to show Boroondara no mercy in the 2nd half. We would need a good Goal Difference by the end of the season to help our chances of securing the championship.
Box Hill came out firing and it wasn't long before we were creating chances again. One passage of play saw Nick take a sensational corner, which Aaron S should have converted....the ball popping out of the box to be hit on the volley by Sam, only to find a defender in the way. Then another shot from Alex, which hit the bar, then another shot by Matt which somehow got deflected and then finally a ball across the face of goal that found no one waiting at the far post. Stackie just laughed and said..."I think that sums up our season....put that video on the Blog"
More goals did eventually come however, courtesy of Alex, Jordan and Jesse....but 5 would be the final total, probably half of what we should have converted. Having said that the boys did knock the ball around nicely today and it was good to see the ball being played back to our defenders when the opportunity arose. Paul and Charlie did some nice work on the wing together as did Kosi and Michael in defence. Nick had a blinder today and he really made a big effort to win the ball in the 50 / 50 tackles. Billy was not bothered too much by Boroondara today, but you can see his confidence growing every week, those goal keeping sessions are really paying dividends.
In other news Monash defeated Bulleen convincingly with a 4 / nil victory. Although it gives us a 5 point break over Bulleen, it also means that we need to get our kicking boots on in the remaining matches to close down our goal difference with Monash.
You can bet that Wembley Park will be a very tense place on August 24th....
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