Gaffers Gob - The Elite 3rd Dec 08

To twist another saying to my ends, lasts night match can be summed up by "what a difference a Gareth makes".

Kudos to any player who stepped onto the pitch last night in what were almost arctic conditions.

Building on the improvement of last week, Gareth returned to the team to add an extra dimension of aggressive running and trickery with the ball. If he can just remember how to shoot straight he could be a heck of a player for us!

Nathan returned to form by not making the journey from Newbury and not letting me know until the match had kicked off. It was only luck the we still had 6 players as Leo was set to hang up his boots for the night. Despite Nathan's assertion that he had acceptable work related reasons, one wonders if this is clouding a return of Netball related excuses favoured by other team members.

The introduction of Gareth helped balance the link between attack and defence which has left us either overstretched at the back or painfully unable to score goals in recent weeks. A situation which is reflected in our lowly league position. Last night saw Leo, Steve and Mike breaking up attacks and harassing attackers who previously ran through our defence with ease while Gareth and little Mike were able to consistently harass the opposition defence and Goal. If only we missed the post less and hit the net more we would have won the match by 2 or 3 clear goals. That situation should improve as Gareth and Nathan return to form and fitness. Alongside this, i would like to repeat my assertion that the 6th and winning goal should not have stood due to being over height. Such a travesty should surely be avoided by the use of assisstive technology, although looking at the state of the patchy ball, Goals may not be able to afford such things (or even a competent ref!). I say that as i was struck in the face last night and that wasn't called over height either when by definition alone it was over chest height as it smashed me in my right eye socket.

Anyway, moaning aside, it cannot undo what was an awesome all round performance which pushed the promotion threatening whippersnappers all the way to the final whistle and shows that the The Mollie's are steadily returning to the dominant form we enjoyed 2 seasons ago. Gareth's return also poses a further question; now his son is back in the team, will our 'anonymous commentator' be so willing to slate all and sundry in his reviews of our games?