Our 2nd SAL league game of the season brought Actionians Association to Douglas Eyre. The 3rds were missing 3 regulars and had to call up youngsters Brad Hall from the 5ths and Sami Makki from the 7ths to make up the numbers.
The 3rds started really brightly with Foster, Corroyer and Morgan running the midfield, helped with Franklin dropping from the 9 to the 10 which allowed Mike Diebelius and Hall to get in behind their full backs.

This was exactly how the first goal came about, Hall robbed a midfielder and found Morgan who moved it quickly to Franklin in the hole who instinctively turned and fed Diebelius who calmly finished past the advancing keeper.

Parms should have been 3 or 4 up with several goal mouth scrambles but credit to Actonians who defended heroically and in the last 10 mins of the half started to put our defence under pressure from set pieces but found our defence impossible to breach.
Time and again Etienne and Thake had the better of their wingers and with Baldwin and Massingham winning all the aerial duels Actonians attacks were mainly fruitless.

The decisive moment came mid way through the 2nd half when Franklin picked up the ball in his own half and played a one two down the left with Hall who in turn carried on his run into the box where Franklin found him with a deft back flick, the keeper saved Hall’s shot with the rebound fulling back to Hall who calmly crossed to the back post where man of the match Franklin calmly chested the ball down before chipping the keeper for a great goal.

Actonians tried to come back but found keeper Holmes in commanding form and determined to keep a hard earned clean sheet bonus.
# PF