Report

Athletic travelled to play Santos minus the departed long serving Kane, and the ill Viraj, leaving the squad down to the bare bones. After an incredible start when intense pressure resulted in 4 corners in quick succession, some superb delivery's into the Santos box were just asking to be finished and after Matthew made himself some space, unfortunately his sat nav was wayward.  Rikardo was looking lively but lacked composure in front of goal and to be honest the game should have been over with after 10 minutes. Santos hit a speculative shot from 25 yds that Amrit dealt comfortably with only to drop the ball over the line. With the next attack, Santos doubled their lead with Jason not being alert and the deficit was now 2 goals. You had to be present to believe what was happening. Kofi, Nawid, Rikardo, Marley, Kyle all should have scored and we were left thinking was it going to be one of those days?. Rikardo broke free to set up NAWID to net and then straight from the kick off, we regained the ball and KYLE chipped home in style.      H/T 2-2

We continued in the second period on the offensive, causing problems with almost every attack, Naz teed up MATTHEW to finish in style with his hardest chance to date. Kofi fed Marley who released NAWID to run 50 yds before finishing with aplomb. MARLEY completed the scoring with a calm sidefoot that his overall performance merited after Bradley and Kyle combined well.

Great attacking display and the scoreline could easily have been double figures with a touch more composure and finesse.  Paul Bryant was in the middle and again gave an impressive refereeing display.