Bedlington 0 Rothbury 0
(After Extra Time – Bedlington won 4-2 on
penalties)
Northern Alliance Combination Cup
semi-finals
Sometimes you just have to be honest with
yourself and ask if you’d really fancy taking a spot-kick in a penalty
shoot-out.
Plenty of people will hand out advice –
just blast it, pick a corner, don’t change your mind – but until you’ve stood
12 yards out with legs wobbly from two hours of exertion, then you don’t really
know how you’d react in what is essentially a test of nerve.
The goals can look rather small when you’re
under pressure to hit the target and no matter how good the connection, you can
do nothing but grimace if you glance up and the keeper has guessed right. It’s
scant consolation to Rothbury’s top scorer Gaz McCann and tricky wide man Greg
Woodburn, who were both denied by the diving Bedlington keeper, but we’ve all
missed them.
The Reds’ hopes of getting a crack at the
Combination Cup silverware were ended as they stood shoulder to shoulder in the
centre circle and watched their team-mates making the long, lonely walk to put
the ball on the spot one by one.
For boss Dan Herron, it was a cruel way to
see his side go out of the competition but he was magnanimous in defeat and
wished Bedlington all the best for their Final appearance against Cramlington
United. But then the Alliance is like that; everyone knows the pain of losing
in a shoot-out and in the bar afterwards you can commiserate over a pint.
Bedlington themselves hailed the game as ‘a
fantastic spectacle for the support’ and no-one would argue as both sides put
in a tremendously hard-working shift across the 120 minutes where neither could
break the deadlock.
Chances came and went at both ends, but the
defences were very much on top with skipper Tom Macpherson putting in a
man-of-the-match display as he marshalled the Reds’ backline superbly.
“We are devastated to be honest,” admitted
Herron. “Losing a semi-final is worse than a final, and on penalties is worse
again!”
“There were a few chances for both teams to be
fair, but it was a game for good defending I thought. It was quite a cagey affair with some decent football played.”
Tony Brown and Chris Coe were successful
with their penalties, but Bedlington tucked away all of their first four to spark
the celebrations and take their place in the Final.
“To be fair to them, all their penalties
were decent and Keega (Paul Appleby) didn’t have much hope,” continued the
boss.
With over half the season still to play,
Rothbury’s aim is now very much one of continued learning and further development
of their attractive style of play.
“We’re not even thinking about promotion to
be honest - just about developing the young lads we have and embedding the
passing style for next year. We’ve got lots of games left to get confidence in the
lads to play out from the back and really establish that free-flowing passing-through philosophy!” said Herron.
Comments
Post a Comment