Ashland Rovers — Sat 3 Jan 2009

Match report

Half time: 0 – 0

Samba kicked off 2009 with a trip to Ashland Rovers. The two clubs had never met before and Samba were wary of repeating the mistakes of 2007 and 2008, where great pre christmas form had been followed by disappointing results in the 2nd half of the campaign. Samba had not played a match since 5 December and their list of absentees extended to six regular first teamers. With this in mind Gibbons opted to move back to 4-4-2 for the first time since the opening day of the season. The game started brightly for Samba on a small and awkward pitch. The first chance of the game fell to Holloway who had got forward from midfield. The ball landed at his feet inside the box, to the right, but his shot although well hit cleared the cross bar. Ashland started to impose themselves on the match, with their forwards looking pacy and able to get behind Samba's back four. A short back pass gave Ashland the opportunity but superb recovering tackles from first Sharp and then C.Taylor, followed by a block by Nicholls thwarted the danger. Samba were creating few chances, and their best of the half was through Gibbons and it was all his own work. He started a mazy run on the edge of the box and beat three defenders but the angle was acute and the shot easy for the keeper. The closest either side came to scoring was when a free kick on the edge of the Samba box, wide left, was hit low and hard and cannoned off the post. It had been a fairly even first half with neither side showing enough craft and guile to create sufficient goal-scoring opportunities. Samba had shown some decent passing but lacked cutting edge at times.

The second half started in much the same fashion with a goal appearing unlikely. However that proved not the case when Ashland took the lead within 10 minutes of the restart. The goal was simplicty itself, with a corner floated to the back post and the Ashland player headed home, when the marking should have been better. Whilst this should have shocked Samba into life it preceded their worst spell of the game, as they could engineer a chance worthy of the name. Ashland were on top without creating masses of chances, although a superb flying save from Nicholls to deny a clever header kept Samba in the game. As the match entered the last quarter the game got stretched and at last Samba made some progress into the Ashland box. The best opportunity fell to G.Taylor who was unfortunate to get under his header, following a Gibbons cross. A consequence of Samba starting to pur some pressure on the Ashland defence was that the home team hit Samba on the break and a succession of last ditch tackles, particularly from Sharp came to the Sandboys rescue. Samba gradually introduced all three substitutes, Brunt, Doughty and Evans and switched to 3-5-2 in an attempt to find an equaliser. The one area of joy was the diagonal ball to G.Taylor who won a succession of knock downs, but no Samba player could apply the finishing touch. In the closing minutes Samba pushed in one last attempt but were caught clean on the break, with the Ashland forward being denied by the outstretched leg of Nicholls. The final whistle blew and whilst Samba could not be faulted for effort, commitment and endeavour, they had failed to create sufficient chances to win the football match.