A one sided arm wrestle

WU Salmon 3- WU Arms 11
(Ht 2-6)
Crawford Green

Scorers (Salmon only)
Bart
Ash
Craig

Well, despite the scoreline blowout the signs were good in parts, with all 3 goals coming from crisp passing after sustained pressure. But the Salmon could only field 9 players and had to steal from the Arms to even make up 10. This, coupled with early season fatigue, meant the Salmon only challenged in the middle two quarters. (The game was four x 20 minutes.) at least three, maybe four, of the arms goals could be linked to tired defence- Sami in particular was sluggish towards the end of the game- having finished his taxi shift at 5am. To be fair to him he did pull of about 5 quality point blank saves in the first half, and his kicking has improved markedly over summer.

The Arms are a handy team and a defeat to them is no shame, although the scoreline might not have been so lopsided had we had another 2 players on hand. Nigel and Ben were our most promising I thought, showing real pace and passion to win the ball.

So the biggest lessons from this are fitness and commitment. Start running, start swimming, do whatever it takes to be able to run hard for the full 90. And maybe it is too early to start the preseason regime- with a squad of 20 players it was disspointing not to get a full turn out, however everyone had good reasons not to be there on Sunday.

Next Sunday we take on the Elite-C'mon Salmon -11 players please!