Brooklands 4’s were looking forward to host Triton 2’s knowing that we needed to start converting our dominance into points in a game against a team above us on goal difference in the league.

Unavailability, injuries etc. haven’t historically foiled our attacking play and didn’t affect it again today.
The team focus was on opening up defences, transferring the ball, getting wide etc. and the team took this onboard.
Our first goal came from us winning a short corner and moving the ball quickly around, back to the injector to knock across the front of Triton’s keeper for Tom B to tap home his first from close range. 1 – 0, 4 mins in.

Our lead was however short lived as we gave away a short corner which we didn’t deal with and after a couple of fine saves by Alex L Triton eventually found a way to force the ball home, a sloppy goal to concede. 1 – 1, 6 mins
A goal straight off the training ground saw us lead 2 – 1, 14 mins into the game. Jez B drove the baseline and slipped the ball through to Tom B who skilfully knocked the bouncing ball past the keeper.

Brooklands extended our lead to 3 – 1 after 23 mins and was probably about where our dominance should have seen us be. A simple short corner routine saw Charlie M drag flick home. The hard work on the training ground is seeing improvements.
The half wasn’t over and we gave away another sloppy short corner, didn’t effectively run at the striker and Triton slotted home for 3 – 2, 25 mins into the first half, where it stayed until half time.

The 4’s youth were already starting to wear out the older Triton players and we started the second half expecting to score a few more.

9 minutes into the second half, 4 – 2, and Tom B had his Hat trick, our first of the season. Jez B drove into the shoulder of the D and his strong shot went through a crowd of players where Tom B officially deflected the ball over the head of the Triton keeper and fortunately it slowly looped in under the cross bar.
We continued to push for more goals and get a 3 goal comfortable lead that our game play deserved. 4 minutes from the end of the game and a scramble in the Triton D, a couple of half saves and eventually the ball popped out from behind the keeper for Joe B to score his 3rd goal in 3 games from a couple of inches out.

Final result 5 – 2. Always keen to entertain the crowd, our first 7 league games have seen a total of 52 goals.

Big thanks as always to Ollie P and Tyler M for umpiring our game, a thankless task and always truly appreciated.