Report

This week saw Cromwell play away and the team arrived in Wigan on a wet cold morning. This was to be the highlight of the day as things went from bad to worse. The opposition was Wigan Junior Latics B who proved to be a very robust team who Cromwell found it very hard to handle.

As the 1st half got underway Cromwell didn’t seem themselves, as both teams had fairly equal possession for the first 10 minutes, with neither really creating any significant chances. As the half wore on it became obvious that Wigan’s game plan was to "get at" the Cromwell players physically. They did this very well with some very good and extremely hard tackles on the ball and equally as many not so good ones on the legs. The Cromwell team did not respond well to this over physical approach as after about 10 minutes they seemed to stop going in for tackles as much and were shying away from the Wigan players. Each time Cromwell did try to break away, our forwards were just either dragged or hacked down by the Wigan defence on every occasion. Added to this the positive play and pass attempts we had seen in the last 2 games seemed also to have left the Cromwell players as they made it easy for Wigan to attack.

After half time I’m afraid to say that it was more of the same as Cromwell seemed to completely give up and Wigan continued to foul and rough the Cromwell players up. With the exception of a few free kicks, Cromwell were given very little help from the ref who just continued to warn the Wigan players, which fell on deaf ears. I fairness to Wigan they did produce some decent play in the second half in particular and did try to pass the ball, with some success, up front. This was counterbalanced however by the negative fouling in midfield and defence. At one point a Wigan defender dragged Carter to the floor by his shirt when the ball was around 30 yards away!

In brief an over physical opponent whom Cromwell never got to grips with at all. I cannot remember a single shot on the Wigan goal so poor was the Cromwell performance. The boys will learn from this and hopefully cope better next time they face some resilient opposition. Our inability to dribble past the fouling defenders also highlighted a training need to promote passing the ball through the defences rather than relying on individuals to carry the ball past the defenders. Well done to the boys as they’ve never faced that sort of opponent before. One to forget and on to Moorfield next week.