MGBSFL DIVISION THREE
NORSTAR LONDON RAIDERS C 4 L'EQUIPE 1
Two goals from Jamie Weinrich helped Norstar London Raiders C move above their opponents and into second place at the Ark.
Oli Nathan had given NLR an early lead in an impressive performance, with Nick Haringman also on target.
Norstar burst out of the blocks and started playing some lovely football and were duly rewarded when first Nathan and then Haringman scored within the first 10 minutes of play.
But for some close offside decisions, missed shots and some top saves from David Prager, Norstar could well have been home and hosed by half time.
Into the second half and Norstar couldn't find a way past the inspired Prager - hitting the post twice before L'Equipe hit back against the run of play through Josh Lewis.
Norstar felt it could have been one of those days, but as the game progressed, but the defence held firm and the super-sub combination of Will Ufland to Weinrich (twice!) saw Norstar register a scoreline that better reflected their performance.
A thoroughly impressive performance from Norstar and the goals have started to come.
NLR boss Zack Gothelf told JC Sport: "We've got the best defence in the league and it showed in this game. Grant Waissel in net didn't have much to do and the impressive Jake Yudelowitz at centre back ensured that Richard Fogelman barely got a sniff of the ball."
L'Equipe joint-manager Dan Cordell told JC Sport: "We were sloppy and did not get into the game. We got a little bit of a foot hold from 20 minutes in but by then we were two down and up against it.
"We were always going to struggle against a good side like Norstar with a few key players out, only 11 men for the day and with Richard Mail going down injured after 20 minutes we knew it wasn't going to be our day.
"Unfortunately we were second to every ball today. We battled hard and up until 85 minutes are defence stood firm. David Prager was absolutely immense in goal today and that's odd given we just lost 4-1.
"Norstar played the pitch well. They obviously have got used to the size of it and got the ball down well and passed it nicely and we were chasing shadows. Taking the silver-lining from the result is that it's almost November and we have just lost our first game of the season so we just need to make sure we bounce on from here right.
"As is always the case in these games where they were just hammering our goal, I thought that you never know we could nick a point which in fairness I would have been very happy with given the way we went about the game today. If it wasn't for our keeper it could have been 6 or 7 and given the last two goals came in the last two minutes our heads just dropped. They thoroughly deserved their victory and we just need to keep our heads up and move on from here."
