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Samba‘s stop start season continued away at Burton Joyce, who were wobbling after such an impressive start to the season. Samba kept their 4-5-1 formation and there were returns to the starting line up for the Taylor brothers, replacing Shelton and Misouda, the latter of which took his place on the bench alongside Wilford and new boy Archer.

Samba started the match the better, though not to the same level as their previous two games in terms of passing. Burton Joyce looked nervous and wasted possession in the early exchanges with no real chances being created. Samba were rewarded for their more positive start when they took the lead from a set piece. Brewer swung in the corner and Wilkinson was inexplicably left unmarked to guide his header into the bottom right hand corner from a standing position.

The early goal should have given Samba the platform to control the half but passes were rushed and the tempo of the game was forcing mistakes from both sides. One mistake was nearly costly when a short Dollochin back pass was intercepted by the Burton Joyce forward and he rounded the on-rushing Nicholls. With more time than he thought he rolled the ball towards goal but it wasn’t accurate enough the ball faded past the far post to maintain Samba’s lead.

Burton Joyce had another good chance when the ball bobbled up for Wilkinson as he was about to clear, allowing the forward a run in on goal. Fortunately the centre half got back to put in a last ditch challenge and force the striker to shoot straight at Nicholls.

Most of Samba’s play was heading down their right hand side and Rose in particular got into some good positions, winning a number of corners. Burton Joyce were pushing men forward at every opportunity and nearly got caught out when Samba broke, this time down their left side. G.Taylor led the charge but with Francis the only other player in the attack, the striker opted to shoot but his effort was blocked 20 yds from goal.

Half Time: FC Samba 0 v 0 Burton Joyce

The second half kicked off and manager Gibbons was looking for improvement despite the one goal lead. Unfortunately the emerging pattern for the first 10 minutes of the second half was that Burton Joyce held a strong territorial advantage and Samba were defending their 18yd line. The pressure told when the Burton Joyce forward received the ball from a throw in, manoeuvred the ball on to his left foot and unleashed a bullet of a shot into the top corner, despite pressure from Wilkinson. Nicholls didn’t have a chance and Burton Joyce had parity.

In the first half, Samba’ goal signalled a decline in the standard of their performance and strangely Burton Joyce equaliser had the opposite effect. Samba made a couple of substitutions introducing Wilford and Archer into the action in the middle of midfield, with C.Taylor dropping to centre back. Wilkinson came closest for Samba with two free kicks from similar positions that curled and dipped beautifully but on both occasions just missed the angle of post and bar.

A few minutes later Gibbons made his last change replacing Bassett with Misouda and going 3-5-2. Samba dug in and when the opportunity arose countered with devastating effect. The attack started down the Samba right and although aided by Burton Joyce’s naive over-commitment of players, they exposed this brilliantly, crossing for Brewer, who laid in the galloping Misouda, who’s finish was excellent across the keeper with his right foot.

It felt like the pivotal point in the match and that Samba would go on to win but there were to be some extra twists. Firstly with no more subs available Hawkins got a nasty facial injury, that brought an abrupt end to his game and left Samba down to 10 men. Furthermore Francis appeared uncomfortable on the left hand side with another recurrence of a hamstring injury that had plagued the Samba forward all season.

Samba defended stoutly but couldn’t hang on and conceded a scrappy goal from a corner, when they had defended set pieces well the majority of the match. The ball was crossed to the far post and when it was headed back across the 6yd box, a scramble ensued, but unfortunately the ball was forced over the line via a deflection and the game was level again with under 10 minutes to go.

With a few minutes remaining Hawkins made an unexpected return, and Samba had their full complement of players again. It was the Sandboys who came closest to snatching victory when first Misouda was unable to repeat his finish, from a similar but wider angle, before Archer was denied by a great save from the Burton Joyce keeper, who dropped down low with lightning reflexes to deny a certain winner.

Overall it felt like a draw was probably the fairest result on a day when neither side played particularly well and did enough for victory.