CAT Match 7 – Surrey United “B”

Kickoff: 2:00 pm Sunday, October 24^th at Cloverdale Athletic

On a wet and dreary weekend Rino’s SC took to the field hoping to take all three points for the third week running. Their opponents –defeated by Rino’s 4-2 in last years corresponding fixture – had started the season strongly and sat three points ahead of Rino’s in the table after six matches.

In Vancouver the rain fell heavily all morning, yet south-east Surrey seemed to have avoided most of the downfall and, as the rain held off for the duration of the match, the pitch was in excellent condition. The wind too seemed willing to cooperate. Though it had swirled viciously overhead during the warm up – reminding me of my time in Dublin where every second match from September to March seemed to be won by the team who could best take advantage of the roaring gales – the wind was barely noticeable by game time.

With such playing conditions an entertaining match seemed certain, and Rino’s took full advantage by getting off to a flyer. Following the kick-off O’Genski made his markers look foolish down the left flank before he flashed in an inviting ball which Pritchard nipped onto to get the slightest of touches. The keeper made the save and managed to block Martin’s follow up, but Ford was not to be denied his SECOND goal of the season and duly put Rino’s up 1-0 with less than a minute on the clock.

Surrey were stunned and continued to fall pray to Rino’s emphatic closing down and slick counter attacks. On one such case Pritchard laid in an inviting ball for the onrushing Martin who needed only one touch to audaciously (who writes this anyways?) chip the keeper. Rino’s held their 2-0 lead going into half time as nothing much of note occurred bar some interesting conversations between Bligh and Surrey’s main danger man. One can only hope the later invests in a thesaurus before the two teams next meet on December 11^th as his arsenal of insults clearly failed to progress from Elementary School (not to say he did either) but ‘bastard child’ ‘bastard child’ needed work. At the very least he should probably Wikipedia Ireland to prove it really does exist, not that someone from Surrey should be so uncomfortable with accents anyways.

After the re-start Surry were gifted a fortunate penalty for handball, yet Thom wasn’t even made work as the Surrey midfielder dragged his spot-kick hopelessly wide. Surrey failed to engineer quality scoring chances and struggled to break down a resolute Rino’s backline. In fact it was Rino’s who could have added to their score as Surrey pushed more and more bodies forward. Martin was particularly wasteful after being sent through by Shih, yet despite doing all the hard work to initially steal the ball in midfield, he shot harmlessly at the keeper.

In the end it made little difference. Rino’s deservedly took all the points and notched up their third clean sheet of the year. Having now played all six teams from Cat ‘A,’ Rino’s sit in third spot, trailing only Westside and today’s opponents.

Team: 4-4-2

Thom, Bligh, McArthur (Simey 45), Khosrovi, Crompton (McArthur 60), Thompson (Atkinson 45), Martin,  Hill (Nolan 45), O’Genski (Hill 70), Pritchard (Shih 45), Ford (Coughny 45).