Chester & District League (8 May 2011)
Waverton Scorer (season's total in brackets)
Matt Sheen - 1 (37)
Report
This was very much the story of a team who'd already secured the league title going through the motions, with minds very clearly on the bigger games to come. Although it was a difficult bouncy pitch, and Groves were their usual combative selves, it's a game Waverton would (and should) have won earlier in the season when there were crucial points at stake.
The whole performance was very flat, particularly through midfield where the Wasps didn't dominate possession in their normal way and as a result never really started the flowing passing football which, at their best, has been too much for opponents to cope with all season. With the defence still looking solid though, and Groves creating very little, the first half became a real stalemate and unsurprisingly the score remained 0-0 at the break.
Waverton started the second half a little brighter, but then conceded a surprise goal as Ollie called for what looked like a harmless ball until it seemed to take an odd bounce and somehow bobbled into the Waverton net. Although Waverton pushed forward more determinedly after this set-back the quality of their play was still not good enough, for a long time, to break down a Groves team who were now sensing they could pull off a shock win. Just when it looked like Waverton may suffer their third defeat of the season though, Matt Sheen equalised with his 37th goal of the season, with one of his trademark cross/shots from wide on the left, which once again landed perfectly beyond the Groves keeper and in the side netting. With little further action at either end the game finished 1-1, which was probably a fair result on today's performances.
Not an ideal warm-up then for the League final at the Exacta stadium next Saturday. To lift that trophy the Wasps will need to show they've got a lot more sting than they showed today, but given their usual ability to "rise to the occasion" they should be confident of doing exactly that.
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