Another beautiful Autumnal morning for the lads as we made another "home" appearance at Pontcanna. Our opponents today were Rumney who have had some fine results to date and were level on points with the Eagles in the league table. The cancellation of the Cardiff School u12 game meant that the managers had a full strength squad to pick from so expectations among the Sideline Crew were high.
The game started at a furious pace with several Eagle chances being parried but it was Rumney who took the lead with a well taken effort by one of their very fast strikers in the first three minutes. Enter Joey! Two excellent shots on goal resulted in a 2-1 lead for the lads but Rumney came back to 2-2 within five minutes. However Joey wasn't finished in the half and scored an excellent header to take the score to 3-2 at the break. Leo and Aaron came on for Declan and Matthew respectively at halftime. Within two minutes of the second half Rumney had pulled back to 3-3 and things looked dire for the Eagles when defensive frailty saw Rumney take a 4-3 lead five minutes later. However, from this point on the Eagles took the game by the scruff of the neck and the front players really made their  presence felt. Pretty soon Niall got on the score sheet and soon after Hassan put the Eagles ahead at 5-4 with an well taken penalty after James was brought down.  The Eagles still weren't finished as Aaron (2) and Joey again finished things off before Rumney got a consolation goal right at the death.

Special mention should go to today's referee who I thought kept his head under a lot of pressure from a vocal away support. Particularly disappointing was the way several female voices were congratulating a player for pushing and showing dissent. Needless to say the Marlboro Sideline crew are well above that sort of thing!!


Final Score
Marlboro 8
Rumney 5

Scorers
Joey 4, Aaron 2, Niall, Hassan (pen)

Llanishen HS next week for an away fixture against Heol Hir! Home from home for some of our lads!

Joey through for his first goal

Marley defends

Joey giving the Rumney defence a hard time

Joey shoots again

The Rumney keeper saves

Mike and Joey combine

The ball goes over Matthew, Marley and Declan but Iwan clears

Marley clears

Hassan puts the spot kick away! Notice the superb positional play of the ref. He can see kicker, keeper and encroaching players!

Declan heads clear

Joey gets his fourth!

Mike in flight

Aaron terrorising the defencee again!