The Marches 2

Cirencester 4ths 0 Wotton 4ths 6

WOTTON-under-Edge fourths travelled to local rivals Cirencester, looking to build on their home win last week against league newcomers Evesham, and to cement their expectations for the season with a continuation of steady team play and individual commitment.

Wotton started slightly nervously, with passes weaker than expected and without the sure sense of space that they were looking for.

Luckily, their opposition was having similar challenges in getting started and early trades between the two teams were for territory only, with neither keeper significantly challenged for the first five minutes.

With the extortions of their captain, Gideon York, ringing in their ears, the team started to settle and play the neat open passing game, which they have started to develop over the last six months, and looking for neat short passes off good runs between the Cirencester players, seeking the gaps in the defensive line that the home team had placed just inside the 23.

Archie Cropper and David Chevin started to work well off each other, sending searching passes along the right sideline and cutting in, looking for the teasing ball low into the circle.

With the pressure increased on the Cirencester defence, it was inevitable that they would start to stumble and give away either penalties or position on the pitch. Both happened in quick succession, within a ten-minute period half way into the first half when Chevin picked a loose ball up, drove hard into the space created by the useful movement of his fellow attacker, Simon Weston, and struck hard to the corner of the net, with the resounding thud on the backboard a reminder to the Cirencester keeper that he would need to watch every move in his circle.

With one already on the scoreboard, Wotton pushed harder and won a series of short corners, looking hard for a second. Cropper was quick to see the space within one such move, picked the ball up deftly, and slotted it home across the straggled form of the keeper.

Cirencester gathered themselves, and started to drive back up the pitch, with a number of dangerous attacks into the Wotton circle.

Quick movement from the Wotton keeper, Ben Gough, saw virtually all hard attacks kicked away, and the remainder swept up by the defensive central spine of Alan Hooper and Nick Watt, who worked hard to move balls safely away to the sides for their wing backs, Richard Gunton and Alan George to move up the field.

George and Gunton worked particularly hard throughout the remainder of the first half, picking out their respective outside halves, Andy Wallace, Adam Hanney and Martin Dove, with a series of neat passes along the line, cutting back into the centre halves when needed to keep the ball moving and in safe possession.

Dove, Hanney and Wallace all worked hard in the engine room of midfield, drawing the ball repeatedly into the attacking danger zone, and releasing the forwards with hard accurate passes.

The remainder of the first half was seen out, with Cirencester starting to build more possession, as Wotton sat back and loosened their grip on the game, leaving the home side free to start building attacks that threatened the Wotton 23 on occasion.

Wotton were struggling to build on their earlier momentum, and the half-time whistle was a stark reminder that, with early efforts rewarded, they could easily be undone with a loss of focus.

Half-time team talks can be a troublesome beast. Most players know where the problems lie, or where the effort has been truly effective.

To galvanise the team effectively requires focus on a small number of key areas for praise and improvement, and that is exactly what was done. Wotton knew that they had the game still to win, and that they had a team that could do it, and that was when the trust in each other really started to show, a change that provided critical to the flow of the game.

At the start of the second half, charged by their successes towards the last five minutes of the first half, Cirencester came out with real intent, throwing more players up the pitch with a change in formation, and the insertion of greater youth further up the field.

Unflustered, Wotton soaked up the first ten minutes of pressure, and kept recovering possession and moving the ball wide up the left and right, pulling apart the restructured Cirencester midfield, and passing around them to place the Wotton attack in a series of good positions at the top of the circle.

Repeated forays into the circle brought a goal for Chevin and a series of close short corners that threatened to overwhelm the home defence and lead to more goals.

Hard work by the Cirencester back line and their keeper kept the Wotton attack at bay for a further five minutes, but pressure built to the point where a worked clearance from Watt moved between Wallace and York, who played Hanney into space, took the pass back and then weighted a through ball to the right post for Hanney to pull across the despairing keepers lunging body, into the waiting stick of Cropper, who coolly slotted the ball home for a very well worked team goal.

With the Wotton team back into a simple passing groove, looking for each other with harder and more accurate passing to string sticks, further attempts on gaol were always going to come, and Chevin added to his hat-trick with a fourth goal taken around the keeper, and pushed safely home for a lead of six, with ten minutes left on the clock.

Tired legs were starting to show and the early hard work took its toll on the bodies of the Wotton team, with both Gunton and Chevin feeling the need for a brief respite. Brief it was, though, as the efforts of Weston and Hanney continued to challenge the Cirencester goal, keeping the home side nervous until the final minutes.

With only five minutes left to go, Chevin was back on the pitch and searching for that elusive fifth goal.

The team were working hard to deliver decent well-timed passes to him, and his puppy-like eagerness was holding back his earlier clinical finish in front of the goal. Partly in desperation, partly as a result of the natural showman in him, Chevin launched a charge at the goal and, as the keeper moved out, decided not to move around him, but instead to lob from the top of the circle.

An audacious move, but one that, on the day, failed. The team forgave this waste of a decent ball, on the basis that Cirencester had attacked hard in response, and were threatening the Wotton goal on a well-timed counter attack.

With only a minute left on the clock, Wotton, led by the defensive wall and player-of-the-match, Nick Watt, held firm against three well-taken short corners form the home side, and ran off the pitch as the decisive winners, with the second half illustrating how the team have welded into a progressive ball retention and attacking unit, a fact that will not be lost on their coach as they move into the next challenging league match against Lansdown 5th XI, which will take place at home at Wotton Sports Centre at 3pm on 15 October. As always, spectators will be made to feel very welcome.