Hepworth v Norristhorpe A 19th April
Posted by susan43 on April 20, 2009
Norristhorpe had the daunting task of visiting high flying Hepworth for a lunch time kick off.
Norristhorpe continued with their Elliot experiment at striker. Carl alongside him as in the 2nd half of fridays game. Due to Ahmid being unable for selection.
Inside the 1st minute Norristhorpe went on the attack only for Elliot to shoot over the bar. Hepworth found Norristhorpe in a determined mood and took 20 minutes to fire there first shot on goal which was the 1st of many excellent saves by cookie in goal.
Norristhorpe gave as good as they got in a free flowing match, had a free kick far out on the right which was vicously whipped into the box from Lee but no-one was able to get a touch on it. Sam and Lee were combining well in defence along with George and Danny White, the midfield were working hard to make things happen for carl and elliot up front .
Hepworth broke through on the 25th minute only to bring an excellent save from Cookie, down at his LHS.
Norristhorpe was having plenty of the ball and were restricting Hepworth to shots from outside the box. On 27 minutes Hepworth had a corner. Which was headed out well clear from Craig to Carl who raced down field only to see the shot saved by the opposition keeper. On the 30 minute mark norristhorpe had their best chance when the ball found torres / elliot in the penalty area, only for him to shoot wide.
Elliot was showing good strength in his striking role, holding off the hepworth defence. with a good shimmy to finish off , he pushed the ball out to carl who struck the ball on the turn to see his shot saved by the keeper.
In the last minute of the first half, norristhorpe had a lucky escape when hepworth had a free kick outside the box on the right , which lee got his head to 1st only to see the ball strike the crossbar and drop into the welcoming arms of cookie.
There was still time for hepworth to mount one last attack which cookie saved from point blank range to turn the ball for a corner. The penalty was packed by both teams for the last play of this half and craig rose above everyone with a brave header clearence to leave the score at 0-0 at half time.
Norristhorpe started the 2nd half with one change, lee coming off for T. So he could deal with the high bouncing ball which was expected from the hepworth goalkeepers clearences. For the 1st half of the 2nd half the game remained scoreless.
with both teams cancelling each other out.
The hepworth coach constantly was changing tactics and players to no avail. But disaster struck on the 60th minute when the norristhorpe defence stepped out to leave the hepworth attacker off side only for him to head the ball into the net and for the goal to stand, even though everyone (both sides)agreed it was off side.
to their credit norristhorpe did not crumble and kept out hepworth with good football. giving them the odd fright in between, but on 75 minutes norristhorpe went 2-0 down all be it undeservedly so . During the 2nd half cookie made good saves, danny white cleared off the line and craig was working hard in midfield with aiden.
There were no further goals. Norristhorpe could take far more positives from this game and should go onwards and upwards with this type of performance.
MOM – Craig who worked hard through 80 minutes, closely followed by cookie for keeping norristhorpe in the game.
