M&T Jaguars vs AFC Totton – 19th Feb’23

What a stunning day to play the beautiful game. Lovely sunshine and perfect temperature to play.
We welcomed AFC Totton to the Rec today for a game that we have been trying to arrange for months.
This would be a big test for the Jaguars as Totton are a good technical team who can play some football.

We never really got our football going today but some of that has to go down as credit to Totton who worked really hard to close down any space we had.

It’s a sign of a great team when they can still get results despite not playing at their best.

We defended well. Ollie, Glyn and Thomas protected their defenders really well and any time they got through William, Eddie or Theo were there to clean up.

If they got through the defensive line, then Rowan showed his class and pulled off some outstanding saves.
It was tough going for Harrison and Mally up front as they had to work hard to make anything happen.

After a really tight first half the sides went in at stalemate.

Half time – Jaguars 0-0 AFC Totton

Totton started the second half on fire and we couldn’t get out of our own half. Constant pressure tested our resilience but we stood firm and disciplined.
We are blessed with pace upfront and despite Mally coming off, we didn’t lose that as AJ had a go there. His pace took him clear on a break away and he finished well to put us 1.0 up.

The Stags responded well though and were soon level. A scramble in our area and the ball fell kindly to a player in blue who finished from close range giving Rowan no chance.

Just when it looked like we would settle for a draw to maintain our unbeaten home record, another break away goal sealed a victory. A lovely bit of football from AJ and James sent Harrison clear after he bent his run to stay onside. He kept calm and finished well past the on rushing keeper.

A different type of game for us today which was exactly what I was looking for when I set it up. I wanted to see how we would cope under pressure. We did really well. We held our discipline, didn’t get frustrated and took our chances when they came.

Full time – Jaguars 2-1 AFC Totton

Some good battling performances today and this was reflected in the votes for player of the day. Usually the glory goes to the creative players and goal scorers but today it was the defenders who stood out.

It was a tie once again with Thomas and Rowan taking the honour.
Thomas made us look solid and won anything that came his way. A couple of perfectly timed slide tackles which any professional would have been proud of.

Before the game I said to Rowan that he would play a big part today (usually he is thankfully quiet) and he didn’t disappoint. He made some spectacular saves which are always great to see but more pleasing to me than that was seeing just how vocal he has become in a short space of time with this team. I could hear him organising his defence and constantly barking advice out from his position. This can make a huge difference to how a defence can perform together.

Well done both and well grafted boys.