5 February 2011

St. Matthew’s 9 Sporting Duet 2     Venue: Brockwell Park, Siberia

It was time to turn our attention to the cup again this week and a quarter-final draw against the league’s French representatives, Sporting Duet. Although from a division below, Duet could have posed us some problems; however, early on in the first half the goals started flowing. Despite a fairly one sided match, the game was marred with frayed tempers on both sides, a sign of how important the tie was to both teams. With a typical Brockwell Park wind blowing up the hill it was hard to play our usual passing game, but at least the weather didn’t seem to affect our finishing and we went in at half time 6-0 up. Some clinical finishing, defence-splitting passing and an outstanding save by our goalkeeper, Justice, gave us an unassailable lead. With the pressure off we changed things around at half time, with defenders going upfront – and scoring – and our centre forward moving to right back. A hotly contested penalty allowed Duet to pull one back, and a long-range effort that moved about 6 different ways in the wind made the final score 9-2. Well done boys – get ready for the semis!

James Alexander