Durley First v First Team

We have had numerous meetings with Durley over the last few seasons as we have often been in the same league, met in cups or played preseason friendlies. Traditionally games have been close, usually won by the odd goal and that tradition was one to continue but in an unfavourable way.

Durley's ground has always been a difficult one to play on, slopes in various directions, bobbles everywhere and an overhanging tree, much different to conditions at priory park. With that said, the first team have a good away record there and hoped that would continue. A couple of changes were forced due to injury / holiday so we shaped up with a different midfield but still had a side capable of winning.

As expected the early stages were hard fought and brought little quality from either side. Dynamos were edging possession and territory but didn't create anything clear cut. Finn McGovern was proving a menace down our left hand side and was starting to get in behind the Durley defence but wasn't able to find any support. As the midfield struggled to get up to speed with the game we were very unfortunate to loose James Masterson-Cox early on after a heavy challenge. The first good chance of the game came Dynamos way as Nathaniel Sherborne was played through but heavy pressure from the Durley defence meant Sherborne couldn't get his strike away. Not long after Sherborne broke through the Durley defence and was one v one with the keeper but was pulled back and unable to reach the ball, no foul given. Right at the end of the first half a goalmouth scramble saw Finn McGovern shoot from close range and he was wiped out in the process, somehow the Durley defender manged to flick the ball off the line and over the bar. A result of the collision meant McGovern had to come off injured. HT 0-0.

The second half brought much of the same, a battled game with no team creating any real opportunities to score, not one for the neutral. With 20 minutes remaining Durley applied some pressure but were unable to break the Dynamos defence, a few shots from distance and plenty of free kicks were comfortably dealt with by the team but nothing was being created by Dynamos. with 10 minutes left to play, Dynamos played a corner into the Durley box and were caught on the break. A Durley player covered the majority of the pitch skipping past our players with ease and eventually squared the ball to another player who scuffed it into the bottom corner. Dynamos continued to press for the remainder of the game but were forced to shoot from distance and didn't trouble the keeper at all. FT: 1-0 to Durley. A below par performance across the board and one we hope to put right in the next fixture.