Duke of Westminster Cup Semi Final (18 April 2010)
Waverton Scorers (season's total in brackets)
Matt Sheen 5 (39)
Coach & Supporters MoM - Matt Sheen
Report
After two straight defeats (their first of the season), followed by a three week break, it was important for Waverton to get back to winning ways. Oh, and there was the small matter of a Cup Final to get through to as well! Having first made it difficult for themselves (in what's now their traditional style) the Wasps did indeed taste victory again, beating the Colts 5-3 and will, once again, face the "old enemy" Boughton in the Westminster Cup Final.
Waverton started strongly and took a very early lead, just a couple of minutes in, when the Colts keeper missed his clearance from a back pass allowing Matt Sheen to slot the ball into an empty net. With confidence high from the early goal the Wasps then dominated the next twenty minutes, playing some good fast passing football, and deservedly took a two goal lead from another Matt Sheen strike.
At this stage Waverton were also performing well in defence, and the Colts had not had a serious strike on goal. Just in case they made it to easy for themselves however (and too calm for the supporters!) they then made a big mistake, with a defender & goalkeeper pass-back mix up allowing a Colts attacker to simply tap the ball into another empty net to bring the score back to 2-1. Rocked onto their heels by this set back the Wasps previous dominance suddenly seemed to evaporate at this point, and the Colts pushed forward with new found confidence. It was therefore Waverton who were happiest to get to the break with no further score.
Having regrouped at half time Waverton started the second half better again. In general possession and play they were always the better team throughout, so it was no surprise when they regained their two goal advantage 5 minutes into the second period, and even less surprise that it was Matt Sheen's hat-trick goal that got them there.
Realising that it was "now or never" Colts started to push more players forward, and with a two goal lead restored Waverton started to sit back too much rather than continuing to push for another goal. The result was a period of Colts pressure, which Waverton withstood well for a while, but then made another couple of defensive errors, both of which were punished by good finishes, and suddenly it was 3-3 with about twenty minutes of the game still remaining.
All season though Waverton have shown great character when their "backs are against the wall". Having found themselves only level in a game they'd dominated for long periods they could have panicked, but instead they simply regrouped and, once again, started to play the better football. Having created a number of openings they retook the lead 4-3 (Matt's fourth) with about ten minutes remaining. With Colts throwing even more men forward the defence didn't make any more errors, and the minutes started to tick away (slowly!). In an attempt to equalise Nomads then committed everybody forward allowing Sam Jones to latch on to a long through ball and get in one on one with the keeper, and although his shot was parried "you know who" had managed to get up in support to knock in his fifth goal of the game (winning him both MoM awards) and put the wasps 5-3 up.
Having played out the last couple of minutes, with no further incident, Waverton eventually won a game that really should have been considerably easier, and would have been had it not been livened up by pressing the "self destruct button" on a couple of occasions! So, with a cup final place assured in May, it's now back to league action next week (against Castrol) with the Double still a very firm possibility (if the team can just stay calm!).
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