Saturday, 27 March 2010
skilltrainingltd Northern League Division 2
An early morning pitch inspection was required after the torrential rain of the last few days. Once it was decided to play then it was game on against two teams who only seven days earlier had fought out a 2 - 2 draw. The srong wind was always going to be a factor in this match, but neither team took full advantage of it.
RCA took advantage of the wind and the slope in the first half and were quickly on the attack, Hall sent a searching pass into the path of Kokes who shot over. The wind was causing problems to both teams with the ball running away from players and the difficult conditions underfoot were making it impossible to play attractive football.
A bit of good fortune stopped Whitehaven taking a bizarre lead when a cross from Robson went over Hoggeth's head, but hit the top of the crossbar.
In the 18th minute Jones latched onto a McBryde pass and fired in a 30 yarder that screamed past Fryer in the Whitehaven goal, but hit the crossbar and went out for a goalkick.
Danger man Robson went close again after 30 minutes, forcing a good save from Hoggeth and in the closing minutes of the first half O'Riordan crossed into the box and Davison headed narrowly wide when he looked odds on to score.
Whitehaven started the second half positively probably bouyed by the fact that they had not conceded in the first half.
In the 50th minute Donnald burst past the RCA defence, but with only the keeper to beat he sent his shot wide. The effect of this miss was to lift the game of RCA who poured forward and Davison was unlucky with a powerful header which flew over the bar. Then a shot from McBryde almost deceived Fryer when it hit a divot, but the keeper did well to readjust his position and make the save.
RCA piled on the pressure and a corner from McBryde was flicked on at the near post by Davison, but it was cleared off the line by Johnson.
Whitehaven almost scored against the run of play when Shaw received a good through ball from Holliday but fired well over the bar.
Then within the space of 30 seconds Davison had two great headers. The first went wide off a defender and from the resulting corner he headed downward and looked to have beaten the keeper but somehow he got a hand to if and it went over the bar for a corner.
In the last five minutes RCA almost self-destructed when a Hall backpass to Hoggeth was intercepted by Holliday, but Hoggeth was able to stay on his feet long enough to stop the Whitehaven captain getting in a cross and the danger was averted.
Marske moved to the top of the table and RCA drop to second for the first time since October.
