Saturday 7 April 2007

Grampound 0-3 Calstock

(Duchy League Div 3)
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Either there was still some lead in the legs after Thursday's derby game at Probus, or some of Grampound's players are not quite as good as they thought they were, but Calstock handed out a much needed lesson in how to play simple football to control and win a game. Much of Grampound's play looked disjointed and either a lack of concentration or skill resulted in handing back hard-fought possession to a grateful Calstock team, meaning that Grampound's defence were constantly under pressure even when their own team were in possession. The goalkeeper and back three had little respite and performed satisfactorily. The midfield squandered possession repeatedly whether under pressure or not and just could not cope when the Calstock midfield broke, leaving the back three outnumbered on several occasions. Whether it was a lack of fitness, commitment or ability is a real problem for the manager; the fact is they did not offer enough as midfield players for a club with promotion ambitions. Up front, the ball was rarely held up for very long and although Turton had a few runs at the opposition after movement down the channels as instructed, especially in the first half, it was a pretty comfortable afternoon for a fairly moderate Calstock back line.

Many of Grampound's well-thought out pre-match instuctions were either forgotten or disregarded as important as some players decided that they knew better. This game has to be a real wake-up call for some of them.

The details of the match are almost irrelevent to Grampound's plight. Grampound found man-of-the-match Nick Tilbury's physical presence a real handful all afternoon and took nearly an hour to sort out how to deal with it. Calstock had slightly the better chances in a scoreless first half, but after dominating everything for the opening ten minutes of the second period, they took the lead with a fine shot after a good save from Ford in the Grampound goal fell nicely to a Calstck player. Captain Glyn Ford was shocked to be shown yellow for a genuine enquiry about a decision, especially as a Calstock player had not even been reprimanded for a blatant kick at Turton in the first half, seen by the referee, but Richie James should have been shown red after the use of foul and abusive language to the referee but escaped with yellow. The referee's decision-making, control and man-management were poor throughout the game but Grampound looked well beaten once Calstock had opened the scoring and further goals were no surprise.

Manager Glyn Leaney wll have some difficult issues to deal with after this, the worst defeat of the season, before the next match at promotion rivals Wadebridge Town.

Squad

Ford T
Webb J
Leaney (sub Woodman A, 85)
Fletcher
Dunn D (sub James R, 70)
Moseley (sub Toms, 75)
Maker
Ford G
Weeks
Turton

Goals

Man of the Match

Roger Paynter (linesman)

Yellow Cards

Glyn Ford
Richie James

Red Cards

Nonen of the Match Yellow Cards Red Cards