Saturday, 6 November 2010
STL Northern League Division 1
Sunderland RCA travelled to current Northern League champions Spennymoor Town with the intent of carving out a result that would depose the present leader from the top of the table. RCA manager Neil Hixon went into the game with a five man midfield designed to stifle Spennymoor's attacking play and looked to incisively build up attacks with Marc Ellison holding and Scott Richards and Micky Coghlan supporting lone striker Richie Logan.
The RCA managements astute tactics paid dividends from the off. The added man in the centre of the park enabled RCA to work the ball intelligently up field and with five minutes gone their endeavours earned a corner. Harrison Davies went over to send in a left footed inswinging which Joe Walton, getting in front of his marker, met at the near post to give RCA an early lead.
Spennymoor hadn’t got going and RCA looked to capitalise on the home sides indifferent start. When Davies was brought down on the left edge of the box Coghlan placed the ball with only one intention. He whipped the freekick over the wall with pace and dip. With the ball sneaking into the bottom corner only an excellent hand from Spennymoor goalkeeper Craig Turns was able to turn the ball away for a corner.
Coghlan nearly doubled RCA’s lead in spectacular fashion on the quarter hour mark. After some confident passing across the midfield Walton earned some yards down the right flank after some tenacious industry and, despite close attention from Chris Mason, he hooked the ball into the path of Coghlan around 20 yards from goal. The ball bounced invitingly for the midfielder who hit a sweet dipping effort that grazed the top of the Spennymoor bar.
Despite looking out of sorts in a attacking sense Spennymoor where always capable of carving an opportunity. That is exactly what happened when Michael Laws played a precise ball between defender and goalkeeper that was not dealt with by RCA and Michael Rae was left with a simple tap in from two yards. The striker, however, inexplicably failed to make contact with the ball and the away side were let off the hook with reiterated warnings reverberating from the RCA bench.
Leon Ryan had been excellent in the centre of Spennymoor’s defence adding credence to his reputation as the best defender in the league. Ryan had set up an interesting battle with the hard working Logan dealing with RCA’s attacks with an efficiency that kept the frontman’s chance in front of goal down to a minimum. Just before half time Logan’s diligence paid off but the striker was unable to convert his deserved opportunity.
The second half provided the inevitable Spennymoor attacking onslaught as the home side went looking for the equaliser. However, some resolute defending from RCA restricted Spennymoor to speculative efforts on goal.
It would be a moment of quality that would eventually break down the RCA defence. Substitute Steven Richardson worked the ball with Alex Francis to Craig Ruddy and the midfielder's clipped ball fell between defence and goalkeeper for Laws to nod home.
Spennymoor began to assert themselves on RCA with Anthony Peacock and Francis running at the RCA backline. The home side should have taken the lead when Francis fed a clever ball through the RCA defence for the run of Rae but RCA keeper Gary Hoggeth was off his line quickly to make an excellent save.
As Spennymoor continued to pressure RCA the defensive partnership of Carl Beasley and James Oates came to the fore as the duo halted Spennymoor’s attacks with some crucial defensive challenges in and around the area. Beasley would make his biggest impact of the game at his former club with around 15 minutes remaining. Steven Harrison provided the cross for Peacock to hit a first time volley that was goalbound. However, Beasley positioning was intuitive and, with Hoggeth beaten, the defender hacked the ball away off the line.
Despite Spennymoor’s dominance it was RCA who had the best chance to win the match with five minutes remaining. Walton’s cross from the right flank was easy for Turns to deal with but the Spennymoor kepper fumbled the ball then collided with his own defender sending them both to the ground. Richard’s was on hand to turn the ball home but, with close attention from a second defender, he somehow could not get his foot around the ball to send it goalwards and it was eventually squirmed away and cleared.
RCA settled for an excellent point that keeps their encouraging form going and knocked Spennymoor Town off the summit of the Northern League First Division.
