Report : Westvale v Langwarrin

[ http://www.langwarrinsoccerclub.org.au/ ]

Westvale 3 vs Langwarrin 3 Scorer Caleb Nichols x 3 The Langy boys went over the Westgate Bridge and round the Western ring road to play westvale. After such a long trip the general concensus is that you want an uneventful day and to take home the 3 points, but the warm up proved that everything was not going to go to plan, with one of the local dogs biting Andrew Skeldar on the arse and knocking off one of the training balls. Even funnier was watching Gus and Robbie in hot pursuit, and as the mounties say in Canada, they always catch there man, but in this case the dog…………exit one yelping dog. As for the game in came Ariel and on the bench were Greg Kilner, Dimos (better know as Dave), Brooksey and Rados. The lads started well and had the Westvale defence under severe pressure, with great chances going begging from big Caleb and Ben Caffrey. As we have seen this season if you don't take your chances you get punished, and that is exactly what happened. The Westvale striker received the ball out wide and took on Sodder, once around him he knocked in a great ball for the striker to knock into the back of the net to give Westvale the lead. Langy knew this deficit was undeserved and proceeded to push forward chasing the equaliser. Up stepped big Caleb, who once again showed why langy were so keen to snap up the youngster from Frankston Pines, knocking in not 1, not 2 but 3 goals in the space of 15mins. His first was from a ball in to the box which hit he on the turn and nutmegged the keeper. The second goal came from a great Caffrey cutback to Caleb who slotted it in just under the bar. The third goal was the best of the lot as Caleb won the ball on the half way line held of 3 defenders to slot his 3rd in. This made it 8 goals in 9 starts for the big fella, who has solved the early season goals dilemma. So there you have it one the best and fastest hat tricks you will see this year. So that's how it ended the 1st half Langy 3 Westvale 1 The second half began and the first goal was always going to be important. Gus had stressed to the boys that if they could score one more it would kill off the game, but he also stressed that to concede an early goal would let Westvale right back into the contest. It only took 5 minutes for the answer to be known, with Westvale scoring from another header at the far post after a cross came in from the right. This again bumped Langy into action with more chances going begging by Ben Caffrey (hey things could be worse for big Ben, he could have smashed Greg Kilners $500K Car....Oops he did that after the game). Langy Suffered a further blow when the ever reliable Kevin Mitchell came off with an ankle injury. He was replaced by Brooksey who was making his return to the 1st team after a 12 month injury layoff (or vb drinking binge?). The game began to open up at this stage, with both teams creating good chances. Gus made a couple more changes with Caffrey off for Kilner and Skeldar (the dog bite was taking effect now) off for Dimos (Dave). Caleb was still causing the Westvale defence all sorts of problems and when he was brought down in the box the langy faithful thought the boys would have a chance to put the result beyond doubt, but, much to the disbelief of everyone in the stadium, the man in the middle waved play on. Dimos also had chances in the dying stages to kill of the game, but the QE2 could have been behind the goals and he still wouldn’t have hit it. After missing enough chances to win 3 games, you could see what was going to happen and that it did. Westvale threw everything forward in a final attempt to gain the equaliser, and it came in the final minute after another dangerous ball was played in from the right to a Westvale striker who duly blasted it home much to the distraught of the large travelling contingent. And that's how it stayed, 3 each, another draw and a feeling that we had just lost $100 and found $10, nice but could have been better. But on the bright side, Langy have now played every side once and are still undefeated, in fact they are now the only undefeated side in the vsf senior leagues, which is a great feat in itself. This week the boys travel to Brunswick, and improvement is needed if we wish to take anything away from a Brunswick side who is also still in the hunt for promotion to the premier league. But I am sure the lads will give a great account of themselves and do the club proud.