Wands Withstand Casuals Barrage
- Cameron Smith
- Jan 15, 2017
- 3 min read
Masterfully ‘parking the bus’ in the second half, ten-man Cray Wanderers exasperated a luckless Corinthian Casuals side to grab a point in a 1-1 draw at King George’s Field.
Before the game started, both sides gathered in the centre-circle for a well-observed minute’s applause, in honour of the late Graham Taylor, the former-England, Watford and Aston Villa manager. The referee concluded the one minute and the game started.
Spreading the ball across the surface of King George’s, play was brilliantly distributed by an efficient and creative Cray side in the opening ten minutes with Haynes firing over. After a brief reign of domination, Corinth slowly edged into the game and settled with the hightempo- Shaun Okojie rifled a low shot into the gloves of keeper Nick Blue. Ben Cheklit’s mazy run saw the winger force a good save before the subsequent corner was glanced wide by Jamie Byatt. Casuals had two consecutive, agonising attempts on goal denied by a yellow shirt on the goal-line; Byatt and Jack Strange had their heads in their hands after the ball was booted away.
In the 33rd minute, the Wands took the lead via Carl Dent as the no.10 notched his seventh goal of the season as he volleyed past Bracken from point blank range. Picking themselves up, Casuals then equalised only two minutes later. Searching for his twentieth goal of the campaign, Shaun Okojie was ready to dispatch a Juevan Spencer cross, but a reckless sliding challenge from Lea Dawson denied him. A clear penalty, the offender was given a yellow card as the referee pointed to the spot. Josh Uzun calmly converted into the bottom left corner- it was 1-1.
Cray, who were dealing with Casuals’ fast attack well, were hugely disadvantaged when Haynes (Cray’s top goal-scorer) was given his marching orders when he lunged at Danny Dudley, leaving his foot outstretched and making contact. Horrendous, it was no surprise when the referee grabbed his red card and sent him off.
The second half saw The Wands put up their defensive shields, ready to combat the flow of Casuals attacks. Josh Gallagher nearly broke those shields when his low effort was inches wide of the post following a mis-understanding in the Cray ranks. Logical, the Cray side were fabulously defending their goal as Okojie’s diving header was guided past the post with ten minutes to go. During the last remaining minutes, Corinth were unable to score and provide a late winner so three blows on the referee’s whistle ended the game 1-1.
Stuart Tree spoke to James Bracken after the game:
“One word to describe today? Frustrating.”
“You've seen it a million times; if you watch football regularly, you'll know that breaking down ten men isn't always the easiest thing to do. The sending off has totally changed the complexion of the game. From there, Cray had very little ambition in the second half”
“It's another game unbeaten which you take the positives from but we need to bounce back on Tuesday with another win."
“We came off the Molesey game last Tuesday in good confidence and we were good in the first half here. We weren't able to adapt to the situation well enough to get three points.”
“Hopefully, come Tuesday night, the pitch will dry up a little bit which will help the game flow more.”
“If we get the win, that'll be seven points in the last three and that's the start of a nice unbeaten run.”
“We have two games in hand. Win those and we're six points off the top of the table. There's still a lot of football to play and it really is all to play for.”
Photo credit: Stuart Tree