Bunny United — Sat 3 Mar 2007

Match report

Half time: 3 – 0

Samba travelled to Bunny desperate for a win after a miserable winless start to 2007. Injuries forced an unfamiliar line up with Michael Bruce making his first team debut in goal, allowing for Ballard to deputise for the injured Francis up front. Samba switched from their orthodox 4-4-2 to a 4-3-1-2 formation with Gibbons playing just behind the forwards. The game started with Samba in control and looking comfortable in the opening exchanges. It wasn’t long before Samba broke the deadlock and when it came it was G.Taylor who showed good opportunism to divert a wayward volley from Paskin into the top left hand corner of the goal. The goal settled Samba, as an early goal so often does and they begin to pass the ball with a belief that had been missing in recent weeks. A move which switched play from right to left saw Bassett in space and he crossed the ball into the box for Ballard who bravely went in with the keeper to force home the ball for 2-0. Ballard was full of running upfront and was giving the Bunny back four and keeper no time on the ball. This paid divends once again when after an initial shot was parried by the Bunny keeper, Ballard looped the loose ball over the keeper and into the net for 3-0. The Samba goal had not been threatened and Bruce on his debut could not have wished for an easier opening half to a game.

The second half started in the same fashion that the first half ended and Gibbons was so unlucky to see his left foot shot hit the underside of the bar. After that however the game dropped into a frustrating lull when the game was interrupted by a series of unnecessary delays due to over fussy refereeing and generally poor play from both sides. It was not until Doughty tested the keeper with a well driven shot with about 15 minutes to go that anything of note happened. Thankfully for Samba this raised the level again and they managed to score two more goals. First Bassett put G.Taylor in the clear on the left hand channel, who made no mistake with a good low finish. Wilford then got in on the act returning a poor clearance first time to beat the Bunny keeper. Bunny themselves had a couple of chances but wastefully blazed over on both occasions that the forwards had got clear of the defence. The score was emphatic, even if the second half had been poor and Samba at last had their first win of 2007 and hoped that this would provide the springboard to get their promotion push back on track.