Merchiston Castle 9 – 1 Belhaven

A hard lesson learnt.

This year’s vintage of Belhaven Hill footballers have come a long way since September 2008. Skills have improved immensely and understanding of the game is much deeper. To-day a hard lesson was learnt as Merchiston showed Belhaven the benefits of determination, organisation and practice.

Belhaven held Merchiston for 15 minutes and indeed produced the first real attack of the game, which forced the Merchiston goalkeeper into a terrific save in the top corner from a Henry Roberts shot from distance. However, gaps soon became evident in the Belhaven backline and with little shape in the middle of midfield, we weren’t competing with enough fire or discipline.

By half-time Merchiston were six goals to the good without reply from Belhaven. Merchiston were causing simple errors from Belhaven, with too many missed kicks and badly-timed tackles from the visiting side. The Merchiston midfield had too much time and space to control the ball and slice their passes past static Belhaven defenders. Much needed to be done if Belhaven were to take anything out of the game as we were all out-of-sorts and Merchy weren’t even having to work for their lead.

After half-time Belhaven played with much more confidence and fluency. Douglas brought steely competition to the midfield areas and the defence finally began to play like a coherent backline, catching Merchiston offside in several well-constructed moves forward.

Despite leaking a seventh goal, Belhaven were having much the best of it and finally broke through with a neatly tucked away goal swept in by captain George C. Soon after, Antonio de L. had a golden chance to reduce the deficit still further but slid the ball just the wrong side of the post from Belhaven’s point of view.

The majority of the second half was played in Merchiston territory and by now the boys were playing with much greater promise. Freddie R. was giving a lesson in sticking to your position as he was always available on the right-wing. Our link-up play with the front men was great and Tony had another good chance to put his name on the scoresheet. George and Douglas were bossing the centre of midfield and Henry was making some vital moves on the left.

However, it was our defence which showed the most improvement as Leo S. began pushing up and playing the ball clear when he needed to. Alongside him at right-back was Mr. Dependable, Jamie M., who apart from one missed kick, produced a faultless game, offering himself at all times, getting into the tackle and winning every one-on-one in which he was involved.

Old ghosts came back to haunt us though, and we gave away an eighth goal through sloppiness and then conceded a cracking, lobbed ninth. This meant a second-half loss 3-1, which was a cruel way to repay good endeavour and improvement. But that is life, and that is football. Merchiston were clinical from the off, scoring every good chance they had, they were competitive and marked their men well – everything that we didn’t do in the first half.

Boys, we need to remember to mark our men more effectively and maintain our positions on the field of play. Too often we were caught out of position, gifting the opposition possession and the chance to play a through ball. As teachers we can but ask that you learn from every experience and try to improve for next time and fortunately we have a chance a week to-day to put matters right, against Dunbar Grammar.

Please note that this coming match will be held at Hallhill.

Man of the match: Jamie.

Photographs: Tom A.-W.