A win against Ridgewaye might have kept alive our hopes of finishing in the top two places, but Ridgewaye's 9 boys played better than our 11.
After two solid days and nights of rain we were one of the few teams in the league whose pitch was playable. We kept Ridgewaye in their own half for the first 15 minutes but our sustained pressure produced few powerful shots and none on target.
The longer Ridgewaye held out the more confident they became and after 20 minutes one of their players eluded our back for and finished coolly. Five minutes later they scored again.
We used the wings better after a couple of substitutions at half time but the finishing continued to be wayward. With ten minutes of the second half gone Ridgewaye scored a third. Ian Dipple narrowed the deficit again when he scored with a clever lob after fifteeen minutes, but we didn't score again until the last minute when Ben Spring finished well after being put through by Chris Newbury.
On the positive side, Tom Ryan finished his first full match for four weeks. Chris Newbury worked hard and made some great passes, Nick Edwards made some good runs down the left in the second half, and Ian Dipple was man-of-the-match for probably his best performance since joining the team. |