Holwell show tenacity to overcome St Andrews.

Match Report – 2nd Jan Holwell 2 – 0 St Andrews

Both teams were full of intent and the whole of the first half was littered with missed chances and some dubious tackling using the conditions of a soft pitch as an excuse for some pretty hairy lunges.
However Holwell were the better of the two and tried to play from the back, with new signing Graham Wells from Heanor Town on the left the home side set about imposing themselves on the visitors defence and on 10mins Scott Mooney had a decent attempt at goal turned away for a corner by keeper Marlow. Nothing resulted from the corner. As St Andrews attacked, the ball was picked up by Kieran Foster on the edge of his own box who run at the midfield played a ball to Bitmead who headed out to Scott Mooney to run at the defence and his cross box pass was weighted perfectly for Wells to shoot at goal but the shot went just past the far post.

Holwell continued to play good football and notable chances fell to Mooney with another shot tipped over. Hibbitt failed to connect with a free header and numerous free kicks were being wasted.

St Andrews were not out of it completely and were competing strongly in midfield and their best chance fell to Richard Saunders on 30mins when he rose at the back post with a free header, heading over when it seemed easier to score. The visitors put in a late push towards the end of the half and on 40mins were again close to opening the score when another header went just past the post. HT 0 – 0

St Andrews were quicker out of the blocks in the second half putting Holwell under pressure early on and one cross in front of goal saw Foster nearly open the scoring with an own goal as his attempted clearance scooped up over the bar for a corner on 50mins. But from the corner the ball was worked up to Graham Keast on the left wing and as he moved in on the edge of the box he had the vision to calmly place his shot round the diving keeper low into the left of the goal to open the score, a goal worthy of any match of the day replay!

Holwell were on top now and St Andrews just couldn’t get to grips with the conditions, their persistent foul count was now of the scale with several players on last warnings Tony Maisto who was booked earlier looked like he wanted to get to the hot water first.

Holwell continued to dominate and had moved to a 3 – 5 – 2 formation to win more ball and on 56 minutes Mooney took the ball well in the centre of the box turning well to place his shot passed the keeper for number two.

Mooney could have put the game well beyond St Andrews with another stunning control in the box but this time the ball went wide, Bitmead continued to take the brunt of the bad tackles up front and again was downed by Johnston who was lucky to escape with a warning and on 80 mins the inevitable happened when Maisto was sent off for persistent fouling.

A great start to the year for Holwell with good effort all round on a sticky pitch but a great work out some good football played setting them up for the next home match on Saturday against Gedling and with this win lifting them up four places in the table just above Gedling it should be a good match.