Fossis CS

When the thirds rolled up to Walhain to face the mighty Fossis (Les) CS, it wasn’t the pitch, the countryside or the cows in the field that caught their attention, but the Nordic modernist style clubhouse that overlooked the pitch while managing to blend seamlessly into the local landscape.

Sadly, that was the end of any seamlessness for this new look 11, and a scrappy, if effortful performance followed.

The thirds started quite well, controlling the opening exchanges against a burly and experienced bunch of Walhainian men. It became clear early on that the referee was in fact applying the rules of Gaelic football, which the thirds were not expecting. On what was a tight pitch, the thirds did well to work the ball down the wings and send Shane galloping into space. However the thirds suffered a sucker punch ten minutes in when a long range free flukily made its way into the back of our net to make it 1-0 to Fossis (Les) CS.

In the minutes that followed, the opposition put pressure on the thirds defence and we were guilty of not clearing balls definitively. However, we managed to keep the opposition at bay until half time, though we sadly couldn’t find the fluid passing in the middle and final thirds that we saw during last week’s game.

After some encouragement and some “get it together for fucks sake” words at halftime, the thirds started the second half much better, pressurising the opposition in their half and creating some very good chances. The midfield moved the ball well with some delicate one touch passing to get in behind their defence. Max was a towering presence in front of the back four, sweeping up any loose ball. Shane was busy up front holding up the ball and getting on the end of some good chances. The defence managed to force the opposition into mostly sending long “hit and hope balls” to the forwards.

But still, what was the undoing of the thirds today was our inability to string more than a few passes together, the result being that we never found much rhythm. Despite terrific effort from all, we didn’t manage to find an equaliser.

Post match? Well, it was back to the Nordic modernist clubhouse for some beers, with guest of honour Gav lifting everyone’s spirits with a large tray of golden Jupiler. Timo was very deservedly named Man of the match. All in all, it was a nice Saturday morning, and we go again next week.