Men's 2nd XI Vs Nottingham Players 3

Fresh off a ridiculous 15-0 win last weekend with a bare 11, South rocked up to Bingham for a game against Players full of confidence and looking forward to seeing if the new formation would be as effective against different opposition. Before the game South did hit a setback with Jon exacerbating a gammy calf in the warm up forcing a starting lineup shuffle. Doubly disappointing against his former team, but he did eventually see the field in a limited capacity.

South started the game well with Ian and Stevie running the centre mid, but couldn’t create many clear chances. Still, the domination told when a neat pass from Batty released Mike on the right and heading for the backline he pulled back for an unmarked Ian running through. Ian drilled the ball straight in the bottom corner, only for skipper Grozzy to ‘make sure’ with the ball inches from going over the line anyway. A+ poaching. More strong play from South was rewarded by a back post finish from Ellz for his 8th (Eighth?!) of the season already following an excellent cross from Gary.

Going into half time 2 goals to the good but knowing it could’ve been more, instructions were to make better decisions in possession and cut out the speculative passes. After the restart and all Hariboed up, South looked to add to their tally while remaining tight at the back. Despite more domination, South still found chances hard to come by until Willey, rampaging up the right, found a gap in the D and finished hard at the near post for his first goal for the club. Opposing heads dropped and the chances started to come more easily with Players’ keeper making a number of good saves. South eventually made the most of 2 short corner goals, one a classic Jon Lane bullet and the other was one Batty will be telling his grandkids about and no doubt his wife is already bored of. Gary did well to deal with a broken down routine to feed the ball to Batty and barely looking at the ball and facing away from goal he managed to spin a sexy shorthanded finish into the bottom corner. Shortly after, Sam came so close to scoring his first 2’s goal, doing well to read a bouncing ball cleanly but hitting the inside of the post with the rebound evading everyone. With a few minutes to go South wrapped up the scoring with a driven cross from deep from Mike deflected high into the goal by Grozzy.

While a 6-0 win didn’t hit the goal scoring heights of last week, it was arguably a better team performance with some fantastic play in the second half. South finish the day in 3rd place and head to Mansfield next week looking to keep their strong play going on their promotion push.