Meads Keep Outside Hopes of Championship Alive

Amateur Football Combination Premier Division - Bealonians 1 Old Meadonians 1

Old Meadonians kept their outside hopes of the championship alive with an excellent hard earned away point garnered at the expense of league leaders Bealonians at Fairlop on Saturday.

A draw is the one result which is destined ultimately to benefit neither side as both needed three points to distance them from pursuit by any of three teams lurking within reach with a cushion of games in hand.

However, it is the hosts who will be ruing the fact that they should have made more of the opportunity afforded by the dismissal of Meads’ striker Colin Hawkins in the third minute after he was deemed to have over reacted to yet another chunk being hewn from his ankle.

Also, it could have been so much worse for them as Meads, after holding onto the lead from the tenth minute until the seventieth, were doubly unlucky when, in the final ten, the first of two twenty yard free kicks cannily calibrated by Jack Costello was brilliantly tipped over and the second whistled just over of its own accord to reprieve them. Meads had initially taken the lead when Hawkins’ young striking partner, Alex Jones, made it four in four games since he came back from injury, taking a layback from Dwayne Rhone on the left and showing singular marksmanship to slot home from the edge of the area.

For the rest of the game it was all hands to the pumps as Meads then defended stoutly until, with twenty minutes to go, a brief lapse of concentration allowed Beals to break down the left and the resultant cross was headed in from ten yards. Alex Jones was named MoM for his goal and the way he ploughed a lonely long furrow up front to keep the ball in enemy territory.

Team: Greening, Glover, Pointer, Palmer, Thompson, Rhone, (Graham), Gerrish, N. Jones, Costello, A. Jones, (Eguae), Hawkins.

March 9, 2010