One hour before kickoff and Dave Millar was scrambling around trying to round up his lost sheep of a team. It seems that week by week, more of the sheep are straying out of the pasture and have lost their way. If any of the lost sheep read this report then they are welcome to return to the Caburn before the big bad wolf gets them, Little Bo peep will not be looking for them though.
As can be seen by the team sheet, Ringmer were just able to manage one sheep on the bench. Wealden in their all orange strip had a full bench and looked confident in the warm up such that they took on the role of the wolf ready to blow the Ringmer house down.
Wealden kicked off up the slope and immediately lost the ball, the next Wealden knew they picking the ball out of their own net as Ben supplied a carefully weighted ball to Ryan who side stepped the Wealden keeper and placed the ball in the net (1-0).
Wealden did not take kindly to this early setback and built a number of assaults on the Ringmer goal which require Matt to pull of some splendid saves; one exceptional save was after 14 minutes when Ringmer had conceded a free kick just outside their goal area.
Ringmer began to take control of the game with some fine interplay without opportunities to score or test the Wealden keeper until on 38 minutes the ball fell to Ryan left of the Wealden goal, his left foot strike struck the crossbar with the rebound landing in favour of the Wealden defence.
Ringmer’s persistence was repaid shortly after on 44 minutes when Ryan fed Rob wide on the left who sprinted to the near post to drive the ball wide of the keeper into the far corner (2-0).
During the interval, Woody was substituted, as he had suffered during the 2nd quarter, by Graham who went into goal releasing Matt to left back. Ringmer started the second half up the slope and started to play some excellent football for a good part, this was particularly pleasing for David whose last minute efforts to assemble a team looked like being rewarded.
The second half played out with some resolute defensive play, hard work by midfield and some well worked opportunities by the front line. Louis Brown stood out today with his strong presence all over the park whether last minute defending, upsetting in midfield or feeding attack.
An excellent team effort on a pitch which in parts required the balance of Torvill and Dean, well done.