Gaffer's Gob (Athletico Becks 12/11/08)

A week is a long time in charge of the Mollie's neatly sums up my feelings following Wednesday nights performance against Athletico Becks. After the detritus that was our match against the Elite the return of Big Mike and Robbie injected some much needed defensive backbone into our aging line-up at the expense of any attack minded players. Therefore it was no surprise that we held up well only conceding 6 goals, equally it was no surprise we only scored 4. However, in terms of sheer performance and guts shown it was a marked improvement from the previous week. Steve continued to show that he is the dirtiest player in our league with cynical trips and defensive positioning offsetting a lack of speed. Robbie also showed natural athleticism in barely breaking a sweat following a lay of about 3 months.

What made this a much more pleasing performance was the passing and general skill shown by the Mollie's (except up front). The impending return of Nathan is a boost for next week, especially given the natural finishing of Mike (some 40 foot above the bar and counting) and Alan (great finish, wrong net). However, this small errors in front of goal aside, the team has shown a great return to form with the hope of three points next week against fellow relegation battlers The Hurricanes. They lost 20-7 against The Elite on Wednesday indicating that the ringer may be a somewhat more permanent problem than hoped. Equally, our net loss by 8 goals against their 13 goals indicates that we may have some hope for our first points of the season.