It’s a Squad Game

Eventually a pleasing evening at Northwood for The Crows winning by four goals to one in a Trophy replay that could have been an awkward encounter.

Northwood again going in front early in the game but the resilience shown by our lads was admirable, levelling just before halftime and then putting in a great second half, scoring another 3, securing a convincing score line.

All the squad available were needed tonight with injuries, absentees and slight niggles blighting most of the team.

Joe Welsh Ryan Frater, Scott Bridges and Daniel Brathwaite all carrying knocks or feeling unwell played. Along with Martel Powell, Ryan Towner and John Frendo “Heavy legged” by the amount of recent games and you can see the dilemma put to us staff in picking a competitive 11.

Joe, typical of the lad agreed to play as did Frates and Braths. Spyros Mentis came in with fresh legs into the midfield and Towns and Martel to play 45 each to conserve some energy for future games.

Leaving John Frendo out was a big call but bringing in Simon Thomas wasn’t. John has been excellent since coming in, scoring goals and leading the line superbly but to keep he’s performance levels up, I felt a rest was needed. John hasn’t had a preseason to gain fitness and we all want him available for the duration of the campaign so hopefully this can help to do that.

At this point can I praise the whole group in taking my choices in the right way and getting on with it.

Maybe because of the amount of changes we didn’t start as we should have done. Giving their 11 far too much room to execute a very good move which put them in front.

After that though we regrouped and slowly but surely started to impose ourselves on the match.

With Josh Castglione “On fire” at the moment we always carried a threat. A slightly fortuitous equaliser but well deserved.

Onto the second half, Martel came on for Towns as planned but with so many out there struggling we had to be very careful with subs.

Frates lasted an hour before being replaced by Maysey. To some this may look unusual but with Dan having played Conference South football as a centre half for Hemel it wasn’t that much a risk. Last sub was Frazer John coming on for Ingers to further he’s involvement at this level.

Back to the League on Saturday against Chalfont away. I will have some hard decisions to make because the squad have proved themselves tonight. My hope is that they all buy in to this “Squad” mentality. We will not win anything with just a bare 11 so fringe lads are essential to our success.

Well done for tonight boys. Rest up and go again Saturday!

Cheers,
SC