Boys' 1st XI v MGS (ISFA Semi-final)

Date: Monday 22nd February

Venue: Home. 2pm kick-off on The Square.

Team: Jones, Fearn, Golding, Evans, Sanderson, Byas, Rees-Jones, Graham, Duggan (C), Chilaka, Gorman, Mullen, Woodhead, Moxham

Result: Repton 2-1 Manchester Grammar School

Match Report:

With Manchester having to give up home advantage and the pitch at Repton deemed playable we finally managed to get the match on a good fortnight after the original date.

The match itself was a scrappy affair that was lit up, on occasion, by one or two bits of quality. We actually started quite brightly with Ndu Chilaka causing problems on the flank and Luke Duggan running strongly in an attacking position. A bone-crunching tackle by Duggan saw him come away with the ball, which he slipped to Johnny GORMAN who danced past the remaining Manchester defenders to finish with real style. Manchester then rallied, looking particularly dangerous from their well-delivered set pieces. However, they were struggling to carve clear cut chances from open play as our defence, Evans and Sanderson in particular, looked strong. It was a similar story at the other end in the sense that although we looked the more likely to break their back line we struggled to create any meaningful chances.

Manchester started the second half brightly and actually had the ball in the net from another good set play. However, the linesman had flagged for offside as one of the other players, and not the goalscorer, was deemed to be interfering with play. A famously vague rule, as discussed often on Match of the day, but perhaps fair enough in this case as the incident was in the six yard box. Either way, it was a tight call. The Manchester midfield looked bright and busy, yet still couldn't really create the killer chance to bring it back to 1-1. We then responed well to this period of Manchester pressure as Duggan, who skippered excellently today, broke down the right to centre for Ndu CHILAKA who finished nicely with his first touch. It was his 27th goal of the season and proved to be a very important strike. We then looked sharp once again with wonderful link-up play between Chilaka and Gorman nearly bringling a third before Sam Graham, clean through on goal, lobbed it just over the goalkeeper....and the bar! With seven minutes to go the game looked like turning once again as Manchester chased a hopeful ball and Repton made their first real defensive error of the match. The finish was superb as the MGS forward slotted into the top corner from 25 yards. A frantic couple of minutes followed before the pressure was eased and the final whistle blown.

I think that we probably deserved to shade the match. It was a tight game and Manchester played well; probably having the higher share of possession and territory. However, we just had that little bit extra at either end which suggested that we were likely to score without shipping 3-4 at the other end and that, I feel, was probably the difference today. We have played better this season but today was all about the result and reversing the trend of four Boodles ISFA Semi Final defeats by getting to our first Boodles ISFA Cup Final.