Mens 1st XI Vs Watsonians

Falkirk & Linlithgow Men’s 1st XI 1 – 5 Watsonians Men’s 1st XI

FLHC went into a game against the league leaders desperately looking for points that have so far been hard to come by this season.

As expected, Watsonians pressed the ball high and had lots of willing runners to close down players and look for runs into the channels. Despite this FLHC started brightly with some good passing around the back and some confident touches in the face of real pressure. Unfortunately this didn’t last too long as Watsonians managed to move the ball nicely to create some space to work a shot and although the shot wasn’t cleanly struck it found a team mate who had ghosted in at the far post to convert from close range.

The game continued as before with FLHC managing some nice periods of passing play and working the ball into some dangerous areas but being unable to apply the final touches. The movement of the Watsonians forwards continued to cause problems for the FLHC defence and eventually some good work resulted in Watsonians winning a short corner which they duly converted to double their lead.

As Watsonians continued to find balls through to their mobile forwards a third goal always looked a possibility and unfortunately arrived when one of the visitors managed to quickly move the ball onto his reverse away from Kevin Cummings before firing into the goal.

Half-time 0-3

A half-time team talk resulted in a few small tweaks to the way the team setup and this was executed too good effect with a much more solid shape and fewer gaps giving the Watsonians runners a lot less space to work with. The result was a much stronger defensive shape which at times frustrated the visitors and saw some mistakes start to creep into their game.

This started to pay dividends as FLHC began to create a few more chances but the breakthrough came as Cameron Scott raced past a couple of defenders and managed to squeeze in an excellent reverse shot high past the keeper from a fairly tight angle to make it 1-3.

This gave the home team hope that a comeback could be on and FLHC continued to play with purpose and create a handful of openings whilst continuing to keep the oppositions chances to a premium. However when a ball did find an opposition player in the ‘d’ a combination of keeper and defender could only prevent the player from scoring by bringing him down. The resulting penalty stroke was despatched to restore the visitors 3 goal lead.

Although FLHC continued with their positive approach in the second half a little bit on indiscipline resulted in the home team losing a player to a green card then later to a yellow card putting them on the back foot for a couple of spells.

The pressure eventually told and the fight was finally taken out of the home team when a reverse hit found the backboard to finally put the game out of reach.

The final few minutes were largely uneventful apart from a final green card for FLHC just before the final whistle.

Despite a very positive performance and some good play from the home team, a very strong Watsonians team won 5-1.

Man of the Match for Falkirk was Douglas Nicol.