Sunday saw Paul Birch Reserves play Eltham Progress in the President’s Charity Cup away at Meridian Sports and Social Club. A game that was meant to be at Footscray Rugby Club but had to be changed at last minute due to pitch availability at Paul Birch’s home ground. 

All the players knew what a good football team Eltham Progress are and this was already confirmed a few weeks before when they had beaten our first team in a friendly game. Despite this the Paul Birch boys seemed confident of getting something out of the game. 

The game kicked-off in the sunshine on what was a lovely wide pitch that was going to suit both teams play of getting the ball down. Eltham Progress started the much quicker of the two teams, but Paul Birch Reserves were slowly getting into rhythm with some good play by Dan and Lee on the left hand side. After 10 minutes of this hard fought game a corner was conceded by the Paul Birch defender and this led to the first goal of the game. Once again slack marking by Paul Birch Reserves at a corner meant that the tall striker was allowed a free header. 

At this point all the Eltham Progress players thought that this was going to be an easy game where they would win comfortably. However Paul Birch Reserves had different ideas and started to dictate the play from the off. The ball was being moved around brilliantly and this created a few chances for Bill to hit from distance, but they were easy for the goalkeeper to save. Despite plying on the pressure until half-time Paul Birch could not find a way through a strong and organised Eltham Progress defence. Although Bill should have done better with a volley that just flashed over the bar after a Knight flick to his partner upfront.

Half time 1-0

We went out for the second half knowing we were very much still in the game and that the next goal would determine proceedings. The bad news for Paul Birch though was that Eltham Progress came out with more conviction and finally looked like the higher division team. Although we looked threatening at times going forward we really never tested the Eltham Progress goalkeeper. The same could be said about Eltham Progress to be fair though, as where they were having a tough time against an excellent defensive display by the quartet of Paul Birch defenders. 

It came down to another header to finally settle the game and unfortunately it came from Eltham Progress where a brilliant ball into the box was placed with power just inside right hand post giving goalkeeper Chris Willmott who had his best game to date no chance. 

The last fifteen minutes were played out with Eltham Progress having a few more chances to extend their lead, but this would have been unfair on a Paul Birch team who had pushed their opponents all the way in a very good game of football.  

At the end of the game some of the opposing players felt that we had been a bit too physical and chose not to shake our players hands.  In our opinion this was a bit disrespectful as it was a cup game against a team from a higher division so we were not going lie down and be beaten easily.  Progress were forced to battle for the result which in fairness they did, but some sportsmanship at the end of the game would have been nice. 

Anyway hopefully we can take this performance into our third league game next week where we have yet to register a win against less superior opponents than today. 

Full time 2-0

 
Man of the Match

Stewart Rutherford - Just shaded it over Acos, with whom it looks like he is forming an excellent partnership at the back