DBFC 45s 1-0 Spartans Immortals
Wednesday 17 May 2023 at HKIS, K.O. 8.30 p.m.
Team: Newley/ Kieran C, Neil M, Morse, Mike/ Simon, Ricky, Will, Resco/ Greg, Kieran M.
Subs: Anago, Steve.
Scorers: Kieran M.
On the morning of the game, we only had 9 confirmed after an unusually high number of our squad declared sick. However, with 5 minutes to spare, the final taxi of players arrived at the ground, with Will having made a huge effort to travel from Tuen Mun and Anago improving enough during the day to declare himself fit. We had a strong starting 11 but only 1 functional sub, with Steve declaring as “emergency only”. DBFC started confidently with Morse and Mac at CB providing an assured presence, and Will dictating the play from CM. We managed to break through the Spartans lines with relative ease, with Will taking possession and playing quick ball up to Kieran and Greg. We had the better of the early exchanges and went 1-0 up after 15 minutes with Kieran M latching on to a short ball from Ricky and poking it past the advancing GK from close range. We settled into a good rhythm and Spartans strong midfield players did not manage to control the tempo of the game in their normal way, and they did not pose the same threat up front in the absence of their quick striker from our previous encounter. Anago came on at LM for Resco after 30 minutes and we looked quite comfortable leading up to HT. We knew that the 2nd half would be a different proposition, with Spartans having a strong bench to turn to, and we had memories of a similar game against Spartans where we lost heavily in the 2nd half. However this game was different and DB continued to look up to the task. Ricky came close to giving us more breathing space after Greg passed from the right and Ricky got a strong shot away from the edge of the area. Inevitably Spartans started to push forward in numbers and we countered by packing our midfield and leaving Kieran up front. Will came off injured after 20 minutes and Resco was fortunately able to come back on. We were under siege for the last 10 minutes with even the Spartans GK appearing in our penalty area. Newley had to bail us out on a couple of occasions but we managed to hang on for a well earned victory.
