That would be me (probably as one of a few).tomogull wrote:Mostly agree with much of what has been posted. Hector is right - only us diehard fans will turn out to watch 'football' of that standard. It's all up in the air. Someone accused Mansfield of playing 'hoof ball'. Well, if that's what they were playing, what were we playing?? Having said that, I thought it was slightly better than against Harlepool and York. Had Bodin's shot gone in off the post, I think we would have gone on to win comfortably. Mansfield are what's best described as a rugged team. I try not to criticise refs but I did think today's ref seemed more ready to penalise us than the opposition. It would be interesting to hear what one of our local referees thought if reading the posts on here.
I thought the defence looked reasonably solid with O'Connor and Pearce having a good first game together. But up front - well, what can you say? Chappell had a very quiet game, Hawley was ineffective, Azeez looked dangerous but didn't really achieve much in my opinion - he definitely needs to get some practice in on his heading! Bodin had a decent game I thought. He seemed to be playing in a slightly different role behind Hawley and Azeez instead of being stuck out on the wing. Modgull posted that we will be okay when the injured players are back. Well, apart from Poke, there's only Downes and Harding out. We're missing Downes of course, but young O'Connor had a solid game. And would anyone really pick Harding ahead of McCourt ?
Hoof ball, for me, is playing fairly aimless 70 yard balls up to the "big man up top" and hoping for the best. This is all Mansfield did all day and, judging from their forum they are A) used to it and B) delighted to be playing that way. None so queer as folk. What we did today wasn't so much that, as it was simply choosing the header up in the air over bringing the ball down and playing football. Whenever we did make the right choice, we looked alright.
Disappointed with Knill's comments on the FLS. It doesn't feel like a win for me, Alan, it feels like a loss because, once again, we've failed to beat a side which would have likely been defeated by our womens' team.
I forgot to mention also that we should have had a penalty from the looks of it, when Manse was clearly bundled over in the box while making a bee-line for the ball. Had it been up the other end, I guess it would have been given by the most clearly and unashamedly biased referee I have seen for years.
Matt.
