Royals Match Report 2005-06

Royals Made to Work Hard for their 3 Points.

Royals 2-1 Coreley (League, 11-09-05)
(Carless-Turland, Hearle)

A cool, overcast but pleasant morning saw the Royals square up to Coreley, a team which beat them, rather against the run of play, in last season's cup final. Coreley is an unusual team. Not very proficient technically, they have a tendency to actually take the few goal scoring chances they get and to defend deep, in numbers and doggedly. This makes it difficult to break them down.

It was the story of their cup final win and could so easily have been the story again this time. The Royals are clearly the more proficient team in terms of technical ability, organisation and speed. But this did not make their task much easier on a day when the flowing, passing, football they are capable of did not fully materialise.

The Royals had a plethora of shots on goal. Many went just wide, many were saved by the excellent Coreley keeper. Coreley, playing so deep, usually had many bodies obscuring the path to goal. But there was also an absence of luck. Often the ball just did not fall right for the Royals. Good shots that could have gone in, missed by inches.

Coreley had only two shots on goal. One went in, the second hit the cross bar. The Royals had maybe two dozen shots on goal, of which only two went in, the second one close to the final whistle. It thus came as a great relief that their technical ability and hard work did give them the three points they so clearly deserved. The Royals were nonetheless not at their best. The passing was slow in getting going and it proved difficult to find the required space in front of goal to shoot. It was almost as if the size of the pitch is now too small for them. Corner kicks at times went out on the other side of the pitch. 

Captain Smith won the toss and elected to play up hill in the first half with a quite strong breeze from behind. The early part of the game was dominated by the Royals, mostly camping in the Coreley half of the pitch, launching attack after attack on the Coreley goal. A goal was soon in the coming. It was headed in by Carless-Turland from an excellent cross by Lewis. The remainder of the first half consisted of a long string of attacks on the Coreley goal, all yielding no result.

 Coreley rarely advanced into the Royals' half and did not have a single shot on goal. The Royals were on top, but their passing was a bit ragged at times and not sufficiently varied or inventive to penetrate the dogged and at times desperate defending. The first half thus ended with just the one goal scored early on.

Manager Smith was quite critical of his team's first half performance, calling for greater effort, determination and desire to get stuck in. 

Coreley opened their account early in the second half. A rare sortie into the Royals half ended with a corner. An excellent corner shot followed which found an unmarked player who headed past keeper Holtz with power and great assurance. Coreley now had more of the game and could have taken the lead half way through. Awarded a free kick inside the Royals' half, a Coreley player produced an excellent shot which hit the cross bar and bounced over. But the Royals were now also producing some good football and still dominated the game. Groom had been brought in and Smith rested. It was finally Groom who provided a clever pass which slit open the Coreley defence and allowed Hearle to tap in the winner. 

The man of the match was undoubtedly the Coreley keeper who was so often in the right place to frustrate the Royals' attackers. The win of the Royals was well deserved, even if they were not in top form and had to battle so very hard.  

Team: Cameron Holtz, Simon Riley, Dominic Robinson, Rory Smith (c), Joe Hearle, Tom Lewis, Harvey Carless-Turland. Sub Ed Groom.