Maroubra United 5 - 3 Waverly Old Boys

Supersubs do the business

It was a cold windy afternoon at Coral Sea but never the less we had a solid squad turnout
With Terry away we had a slight reshuffle with Russell moving to centre mid and Daz taking up right back with Rod in front of him.
We started really well and went ahead after 10 minutes when Neil was taken down in the box and Luke duly converted. After 20 minutes Justin, aka the Pao, came on to give Russell a break and it wasn't long until he bundled home a corner after some ping-pong in the box. 2-0 and cruising or so it seemed.
With our midfiled tiring, their better midfielder made a sortie forward attepting a shot on goal which defence
blocked. Unfortunaltely, the ball fell kingly back to him and he smashed home, 2-1.
This sprung Waverly into life and they started to attack, especially down their right flank with their talented no11 causing havoc. He eventually made some space and whipped in a quality cross which their striker couldn't miss. 2-2 and almost half time.
A Yoshi inspired substition saw Frank return to the field for the remaining minutes of the half. Quickly he
intercepted a clearance and drove forward playing a through ball down the inside-left channel to Luke. He spun his man, cut the ball back, which was then fed across to Rod on the right who smashed it across goal towards the back post where Luke met to prod home, quality goal. 3-2 halftime.

The halftime chat concentrated on closing out the game, keeping our focus and limiting substitions for the sake of them. It was also noted that we needed to keep our mouths closed as they ref was getting card happy and obviously hadn't yet met his weekly targets.
For once we started the second half well controlling midfield and creating chance after chance with wasted opportunities and goal line clearances the order of the day.
Midway through the half Leo returned to the fray and was getting space on the right side allowing him to push forward and it wasn't long before he pounced on a pushed save from the keeper to double his season tally. 4-2
It was now up to the defense to hold firm and close out the game and they continue to work well as a unit.
when a Waverly midfielder raced towards a lose ball inside the Maroubra half, Philippe engaged the throttle,
pressed the nitro button, hitting warp speed as he advance towards the ball. However the Waverly player made it just before him, getting a touch, leaving Phil no option but to go straight through his man. Yellow card.
All the troops got back and were well organised however, the taker had different ideas and from close to 40
yards, place it perfectly just under the crossbar with Karl getting his fingers to it but not enough to tip it over.
4-3, not again....
We freshened things up again and maintained our dominance soon scoring again through the big man Justin.
5-3 allowing Francis a gloat at the striker he was marking. But it wasn't over yet, Neil was held back in the box but the ref was unmoved so Neil issued a few trade mark expletives but the ref took it personally, stopping play and issue a second yellow. Down to 10 men with 6 minutes left
The bench wanted to make some defensive changes but we resisted as we felt the unit was working well,
shutting down all sorties forward as a team..
Finally the full time whistle sounded and we had recorded our second win of the season.
The season is now at the halfway point and we sit in 5th, 1 point off 4th, although Dunbar still have to play
Waverly in a catchup. With only 1 loss in 8 games, its a solid start but our win ratio needs to improve to make the top 4.