Rarely do a team get blown away, but NL Raiders felt the force of a Lions Morrison backlash and never recovered after finding themselves three goals down before they barely had time to settle.
March 30, 2009 12:24
ByAnonymous, Anonymous
JC Cyril Anekstein Cup Round 3:
NL Raiders A 2 LML A 7
Rarely do a team get blown away, but NL Raiders felt the force of a Lions Morrison backlash and never recovered after finding themselves three goals down before they barely had time to settle. The Lions understood the need to make the most of what was their last chance of silverware this year and they did not miss a beat.
The Lions went ahead within two minutes after a Myers through ball split the Raiders defence which Ben Joseph ran onto and lobbed keeper Caro whose first task was to pick the ball out of his net.
This was followed up five minutes later with an almost exact replica except this time it was Myers to Pearson.
Number three was a superb team goal which involved a dozen passes before Pearson was set free to fire home, while the fourth was all down to the determination of Dinkin which allowed Fieldgrass to fire home and the fifth was more great movement followed by a pinpoint cross by Joseph for Pearson to head home.
The second half started with a Gold free-kick being parried by Caro before being slotted home by Dinkin.
To Raiders' credit, they did not give up and pulled a goal back through Adam Posner before Dinkin slotted home to make it seven.
Posner claimed his second before the end to leave the final score as 7-2, but the day belonged to the Lions and there can be no doubt that the scoreline did reflect their superiority.
Player manager Myers was delighted, especially after last week's non-performance and said: "It was far and away our best performance of the season which combined a great work ethic with real quality football. We are very much up for the challenge of defending the Anekstein."
Raiders boss Adam Fegan told JC Sport: "Sunday was a harsh lesson for us and and hopefully it will serve us well in the long run. Firstly a lot of credit must go to Lions and Andy. They wanted it, they competed and they made sure they were first to everything. We didn't do any of those things.
"Mike Pearson is simply a class act and we couldn't cope with him. But on the whole we showed them too much respect and didn't want it as much as them, and when you are playing such a good side you stand no chance if you don't at least match them for desire."
LML A: Brahams, Lew, Spiro, Myers (sub: Levy 52), Gold, Fieldgrass (sub: Steele 56), Leslie, Schwarz, Joseph, Dinkin, Pearson
Raiders: Caro, R. Joselyn, D. Flitterman, Greene, Matt Leader, Adam Joselyn, Mark Leader, Bloom, B. Sheldon, Posner, Woolf
Mensch-of-the-match: David Dinkin