Wirral v Merchant Taylors

On a cool, cloudy afternoon the Wirral 1st and 2nd XI teams went over the water to Liverpool and up to Crosby to play Merchant Taylor's School.  On arriving there young Lyness showed his true colours with some funny smells!!  This probably didn't help our start as we went behind to an early Merchants goal.  This down to sloppy play and us not playing to our usual high tempo.

Without this pace and good passing we can at time make simple mistakes!  Those mistakes often cost us.  As the half developed the Merchants passing game and decisiveness told as they put together a second good move to go 2-0 up.  We the started to battle and play some good hockey often illustrated by Bush and Harvey.  A driving run by Bush saw him pick out Evans who finished with aplomb.  Silly mistakes by Eastwood and Walker saw us behind 3-1 at half time.

Just reinforcement of what we are good at and to raise the intensity was Metcalf's words at half time, with a few changes.  A goal for Cropper from close range and then an equaliser from Plimley saw us back in the game!  But sustained pressure down our left his side saw the Merchants team grab a late winner to win the game 4-3.  The man of the match performance was given by Hankie who was strong resilient and committed throughout.  Nullifying the Merchants attacks and popping up in the opposing dee on numerous occasions only to find that the ball did not arrive to him.  Well played!!

Had we taken the chances at short corners and played like we did in the second half throughout, I'm sure the second half would have been different.  Still very encouraging and lets take that second half into the game against Neston next week!!

AJM