Goals:
Barrett 3
Southern 3
Top by a point and with a game in hand, you’d think it would be nothing but rosy in the B team garden at present….And whilst it may be true that the numbers look healthy it has to be said that this resounding-sounding win does not tell the full story of a team which has potential galore but is currently leaning a little too heavily on its ability to merely outscore the opposition.
Anyone watching this game would no doubt agree that it was no great spectacle of pretty football; More a scrappy affair punctuated by some out-of-place precision finishing. Bolts came into the match on the back of a relatively unconvincing home win last week against an ordinary Thornleigh side & had a point to prove. Admittedly, injuries & absence lent the team a slightly unfamiliar look but there was enough proven quality in the side to do some real damage.
All began according to plan when a sprightly-looking Wes Davies pulled back a neat ball from the by-line for the club’s leading scorer Rob Southern to tap in – his 17th of a superb season & continuing his great run of scoring in every game this season – If we allow him last week’s dubious goal claim, that is!
Bolts didn’t really build too well on the lead however, and began an all too familiar pattern of poor ball retention. However, the lead was extended when Southern whipped in a cross for his strike partner Dan Barrett to slam home past a keeper who was soon to realise he was in for a rough afternoon. Again though, Bolts let the momentum slide & could have no complaints when Bury grabbed a goal back with a pretty simple but incisive move. 2-1 up at half-time but with the job by no means done, Boss Milne urged his men to raise the tempo, keep the ball & tighten up the passing!
To be fair, the first 15 mins of the second half saw Bolts blow the opposition away, as the strike force really began to smell blood. Southern’s second was a real beauty, as he cleverly slipped a defender and then showed real poise by chipping the keeper from 18 yards. Not to be outdone, Barrett then matched his partner by cutting inside from the right and clipping a lovely curling left-footer which evaded the keeper’s dive, hit the inside of the far post and rolled along, then over, the goal-line. 4-1 all of a sudden, and time to turn on the style…This time, Barrett repaid the favour by slotting a neat through ball for Southern to firmly despatch and claim his hat-trick.
It did seem though that these moments of quality were a bit out of step with the team’s general play. Yet again, Bolts got sucked into trouble with poor passing, rushed decisions & dubious decision-making. Whilst Bury didn’t have the weapons to punish the errors accordingly, you can’t help but feel another team might. Keeper Matt Fray was pretty redundant throughout but did show some excellent distribution, (seemingly going for the world record in how many times a keeper can throw the ball out instead of kick) and the young midfield duo of Leo Curtin & John Abbott were displaying no mean levels of both fitness & quality; But for whatever reason, the team just never reached any level of comfort but to be fair, perhaps the collective foot was being somewhat taken off the pedal by this point.
Just one more goal emerged, and it was with virtually the last kick of the game. Dan Barrett, hungry to claim his own treble, capped off an influential 2nd half when he moved in from the left and nonchalantly chipped the forlorn keeper from fully 25 yards – A Cantona-style ‘static’ celebration followed, amid mean-spirited jibes that it was only because he ‘couldn’t be arsed to run’ even in celebration!… That meant a hat-trick each for Barrett & Southern, totalling up to a very impressive 32 goals between them in the 11 games so far.
Anyway, job done and the Bolts maintained into a 1 point lead at the top of the league. This obviously bodes well and there are plenty of positives to be taken. This team easily has enough talented players to be giving the opposition football lessons; that it isn’t is only really down to concentration, maybe a little complacency & relying on the self-anointed goals.com strike partnership to repeatedly come up with the goods!
The fear is that there will be games where this may not happen quite so easily.
Does Milne have a Plan B?