Princes Villa 1 v 3 AFC Waverton Wasps

Chester & District League (26^th February 2012)

Waverton Scorers (season’s total in brackets)

Aaron Hassall  -  2 (13)

Charlie Jones  -  1 (12)

Report

Waverton took another step nearer retaining their title, with a 3-1 win over Princes Villa in a bad tempered game, but once again the team were far from their best, and will certainly need to “up their game” before taking on Upton in the Cup next week.

The game kicked off in good sunny conditions on a big wide pitch that should have suited Waverton’s passing game. Despite dominating the early possession though, the team continued to struggle to put together their normal quality of football, and the game remained goalless until Aaron Hassall struck a good free kick half way through the half which went in under the keeper (who’d have expected to do better) to put Waverton 1-0 ahead.

With the amount of possession they had, Waverton should have been 3 or 4 ahead, but too often players took on too much themselves and even when chances were created they were wasted, continuing a trend the team have been showing for some weeks now. Games against Princes Villa are always “niggly”, but with 10 minutes to go before half time one of the Waverton players lost their discipline in retaliating, resulting in the team’s first ever sending off.

When Princes Villa then equalised, with a scrambled goal from a corner, it looked like Waverton may be made to pay for going down to ten men, onlyfor them to be saved by a Princes Villa team who themselves lost their cool and had two players sent off. It was disappointing though that the Waverton team didn’t learn from this, and also picked up a further three bookings for avoidable offences later in the game. This lack of discipline is something the team need to sort out, quickly!

In a second half with ten men (Waverton) versus nine (Princes Villa), there was even more room to be had on the big pitch, but the fact that Waverton could only add two more goals, from Aaron & Charlie Jones, showed that there were still not at their best, and really couldn’t string together the high quality passing football we know they’re capable of. The one area that remained calm and controlled though was the defence, where Jorge Percival, Charlie Nicholson & Jordan Coxall all had strong games, as acknowledged by the supporters who voted them joint MoM.

This wasn’t a good warm up for Upton next week, but hopefully it was a wake up call!