Penycae Football Club C.I.C.

After a 6 week lay off due to bad weather and Christmas, we were back in action against top of the table Brickfield. This was a very tough 1st game back for us and even though we got a win away we were clearly underdogs for this fixture. The 1st 35mins of the 1st half was the worst performance since I have taken the job, the defending at times was shambolic and classing it as schoolboy errors would be harsh on them as schoolboys would probably have done a better job. We normally are a good team in possession but that was none existent as nobody wanted the ball and took the easy option of knocking it long. Credit to brickfield as they pounced on every mistake and poor defending and punished us by scoring 7 goals in that 35 min spell, we did manage to get on the scoresheet when Alex Rowlands hit a screamer from 25 yds out into the top corner. Ht 1-7. We couldn't wait to get the players in at half time, it wasn't all shouting and screaming, it was more of asking the question of commitment /attitude and effort because there was none of this in the 1st half. We never made any changes at half time, we gave the players a chance to get a bit of pride back. The 2nd half was much better and the players can gain a new some confidence from the display, we began to pass the ball around and create chances. Brickfield had obviously taken the foot off the gas a bit, but we still needed to get to a level of performance that we are capable of. We managed to win the 2nd half 1-0 thanks to a goal from Josh Millington and a superb penalty save from Matt Griffiths, bit overall the damage was done 1st half. Ft 2-7.