Jug avoidance to the fore

Valley went into this fixture hopeful of keeping the winning run going. The team was enhanced with Del Smith playing his first game for 6 months after recovering from injury. He was part of a new look forward line which let loose Rob as centre forward and JC out wide on the right.

With Phil Boast making his debut in the middle of the park with Sumit, Jono on the left and Newts out right Valley were hoping to attack from the off. This tactic was working and as Rob started to adjust to his new role up front Valley forced a number of short corners without converting.

After one of these which had been cleared by Kenley, the ball broke to Phil who brought the ball into the D and let rip at goal. JC anticipated the bobble that was about to take the ball wide and stuck his stick out to deflect the ball into the back of the net and open the scoring

Sumit was mopping everything up in the middle and the ball was played around with ease. The movement of the front three was causing Kenley all sorts of bother and it paid off again. Phil knocked the ball out to JC who hit a cross field ball to Del who then swapped a couple of passes with Rob before burying it past the keeper.

2-0 at half time and the Valley defence had not had a serious period of sustained pressure against them. They had mopped up everythign that had been thrown at them and provided a solid platform for the midfield and forwards to more forward as often as possible.

Rob had a number of one-on-ones with the keeper that he couldn't quite finish, but it was only a matter of time before Valley scored again. Newts took the ball down the right and fired it into the D. It fell to Phil who smacked it at goal and saw it saved by the keeper. It came back to him and he fired again but to no avail. Just as he was about to take his third strike JC stepped in and scooped it past the keeper to record his 2nd goal of the season and beat the previous season's total by 2.

Rob finally got on the scoresheet after a poor ball from JC somehow bobbled through the Kenley defence and was deftly smashed into the corner past the keeper.

JC had a chance to complete his hat-trick shortly after when the keeper logged, but was not composed enough. Not only had he missed a gilt-edged chance, but he then subbed himself to let Phil back on and earned the Jug avoidance penalty. In keeping with his finishing in the match, Rob managed to miss the Jug avoidance penalty as well.

Valley were unable to add to the score, but this was by far the best performance of the season and probably the previous season.

[Ed: Thanks to JC for the match report ]