Alphington 5 - 3 Crediton 8th Sept 2007 - A team that looked like they were "Vaughan again"

What a difference from last week's squad. The game was played in extremely hot and sunny conditions (as my bright red legs told me this morning!) but the team was strengthened with the return of some of the key players. The Alphas almost took the lead in the first 2 minutes but the striker who scored was deemed to be offside!!!!!! It wasn't very long before Jason "3 goals, 3 headers - obviously trying to save his ageing legs" Warren opened the scoring with another well taken header from a Gary Hayes corner. The lead was doubled in the 9th minute after a superb display of mid-field battling by the young Lawrence Khoo who managed to hold the ball up before threading it through the defence for Danny Tyrrell to unleash an unstoppable volley. The Alphas continued to apply pressure and showed some of the quality that has been missing over the last few weeks that we all knew they had, and for 45 minutes the Kyrton players bearly left their own half.

In a bizarre twist of events the first half ended up 2-2 after Trenaman beat Tony Ali with a superbly struck free kick from some 25 yards outside the box. This was followed by the equaliser from Greenslade which came straight from the re-start when he tip-toed through the Alphington defence, who were clearly already in the changing rooms, leaving him one on one with Ali who was given little chance to save the ensuing shot.

The second 45 started with the Kyrton boys having the wind in their sails after finishing the first 45 so strongly. A defensive error at the back by Simmo almost allowed Greenslade to get his second goal but I think the excitement got the better of him as he managed to up and over the ball, giving the Alphas a momentary reprieve. Around the 55 minute mark the referee awarded Crediton a penalty after Rich Pulsford was deemed to have fouled a Crediton forward (not sure if I heard correctly, but the penalty was awarded for Pulsford pulling the player down from behind, when Pulsford was actually running in front of him!). Trenaman converted the penalty to make it 3-2. This was probably the wake-up call the Alphas needed and within 10 minutes Gary Hayes made it 3-3 after a great through ball from Tyrrell left a player of Hayes' quality little chance of missing. From this point on it seemed the Crediton boys could do little else other than defend as the Alphas launched a constant barrage of attacks which was rewarded with the 4th goal for the Alphas after another sublime cross from Tyrrell was headed down into the danger area by Gotty for Ryan Leverton to finish off. Five minutes later I can only think that the earlier dubious penalty the referee gave was praying on his mind when he awarded the Alphas an 80th minute penalty, when Leverton was apparently brought down in what looked to me like a fair 50:50 challenge. Lawrence Khoo added to his early season goal tally when it made it 5-3 from the penalty spot.

In summary, a deserved victory for the Alphas was made extremely difficult by themselves with some lapses in concentration which may or may not have been due to the extremely hot weather.

Eds Man of the Match Danny Tyrell

All first team reports are written by and are the sole view of Russ Murch, they are in no way endorsed by Alphington AFC