Sunderland Sunday League
Sunday 5 April 2009
RCA The Barnes crashed to a heavy defeat against a very strong Plains Farm by six goals to nil.
RCA were hit by withdrawals from the spine of their side when keeper Errington reported with a broken rib, centre half was Phil Hall missing at Wembley, midfield playmaker McLeod suffering a groin problem from Saturday's RCA game against Whickam and centre forward Andy Place going down with flu. Plains Farm had a full strength squad to call on, bar a goalkeeper, and fielded RCA centre half Paul Wardle between the sticks (to be honest they could have put a cardboard cutout there given the total lack of efforts on goal he had to field) and also included Wayne Henderson, Michael Coghlan and Gary Shields in their starting eleven.
RCA never got started and Plains Farm dominated from the off. They were quickly into their stride against a pitifull RCA who found themselves very quickly 4-0 down at half time with strikes from Anthony Holmes (2), Gary Shields (1) and David Anderson (1).
The second half was a cakewalk for Plains Farm and to be honest they could have scored at will if they had wanted to, but contented themselves to two further strikes, both from MOM Michael Coghlan, to give a final score of 6-0 to Plains Farm.
All in all, a very dissappointing effort from RCA, which showed up our lack of depth and quality within the squad, a position that will need addressing for next season.
Still a quarter final on Sunday, 12 April against Colonel Prior at Ryhope CW to come though and here's hoping that our performance then is stepped up by at least 100%.