Friendly
Saturday, 22 July 2006
Our first friendly saw the first team squad in action in a highly competitive match away to Arngrove First Division club Shildon AFC. This was the first friendly of six whereby manager Steve Smith was hoping to assess the fitness and potential of his squad.
Sunderland RCA started brightly with several good moves breaking down at crucial points, mostly on the edge of the box.
Although chances were rare in the early exchanges it was clear that there would be little to separate both teams. As the first half wore on it was the experienced Shildon team who began to take control and only excellent goal keeping kept the score 0-0 at half time.
In the second half both teams rang the changes and it was to no surprise when the lively Shildon forwards broke through to open the scoring early in the second half. This did not deter the youthful SRCA team who battled throughout and deservedly equalised.
A good workout was experienced with manager Steve Smith and his assistant Karl Langley declaring that there were 'more positives than negatives to come out of the game' and 'this is certainly a platform to build on'.