MATCH REPORT: Round 11 vs Northern Rovers
NRFL Men's First Team Round 11 Match Report – East Coast Bays vs Northen Rovers, Bay City Park, Saturday 28 May 2022
The weather came out, it was a beautiful winters day at Bay City Park for the local derby with Northern Rovers. A strong line up for the Bays on the back of two great wins.
Bays started on the front foot, with some crisp passing and movement. A move starting out wide on the right, when a pinpoint cross was delivered, the inform Keegan Kelly left his marker and connected with his head and the ball nestled into the roof of the net leaving their keeper Diver with no chance, in fact he didn’t even dive!
One up and only 4 minutes played. The boys continued to play the better football, great pressing and our wide players Codey and Liam causing Northern problems and our defence looked solid. After 20 minutes played Declan crossed for Nicolai, who came close with his first-time effort hitting the post. On 35 minutes Northern looked dangerous on a counterattack and their number 10, Brown saw his effort
clip the bar, although I’m sure the impressive Sam Carpenter had it covered. Our midfield continued to dominate and break down Northern when they did try to counter. After another great through ball, Keegan latched on to it and was worrying their defence, from where I was, he was chopped down, although the referee continued with some bizarre decisions all afternoon this was probably his first, play was allowed to carry on. Keegan was down for some time and did well to see out until half time.
Half time and the Bays go in 1-0 up. Oscar Garcia replaced the injured Kelly, with a reshuffle that saw Liam push up front and Oscar out wide. The second half started at a faster pace with Bays continuing the use both flanks and dominate midfield. The referee finally produced a yellow card, I thought he’d forgot to bring them, for a cynical pull back on Nicolai by Middledrop. All of a sudden, we seemed to not beat the first defender with our crossing and Northern came back into the game with some fast balls through of their own.
On 63 minutes an unchallenged cross came in from the right wing and Northern’s captain Brown guided his header into the goal 1-1.
Within a minute Bay’s were 2 – 1 down, another attack from Northern was calmly finished by Quinlan, I have to say Northern were on top at this stage and were playing some nice football, time to change things up.
On 66 minutes Kim and Logan were replaced, Julian Collett making his Bays debut replaced Logan and Jason replaced Kim. Both substitutes made an immediate impact, Julian’s organising and ability to deliver some pinpoint passing and Jason’s movement started to get Bay’s back into the game. Julian sent a great ball through to Nicolai, who got his shot away on target, but was well covered by Diver.
Declan was then subbed and the impressive Nick Gaze was introduced, one of the many young Bay’s squad coming into their own this season. A pass went through to Liam and for reasons unknown the referee gave offside, even though the assistant referee kept his flag down, I don’t know what happened in the referees shed at half time, however the officials were clearly not speaking to each other!
Oscar was the victim of assault by a Northern defender and the free kick was given to Northern, Oscar was trying to continue with the defender pinning him down, again no communication from the AR who was a few yards away. This is going to sound biased but there we two great penalty shouts for Bay’s, maybe if they’d gone down like Northern’s number 6, who I thought had been shot, they’d of been given. Bays went all out for the equalizer and definitely finished the stronger, but it wasn’t to be. The last chance was a freekick that the keeper managed to catch and it was all over.
Final Score: East Coast Bays 1 vs Northern Rovers 2
Player of the day went to Callum.