Saracens Football Club

match stats	Watton-At-Stone vs Saracens
half time score	0-1
full time score	0-2
managers man of match	Matt West (C)
captains man of match	Dan Hemmings
scorers	Rob Djemal (2)
bookings	None

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match comments

Lee Slade

Solid performance, made some excellent stops and a massive improvement in the goal kicks

Matt West (C)

DEF

Shaky first 10 minutes but faultless after, never lost a header and threw himself in front of everything worthy MoM

Matt Beech

DEF

Let his man the goal side a few times but he's quick enough to recover. Still settling in to the 3 man defence

Darren Wood

DEF

Good solid defending is a Woody trade mark and today was no different, very vocal and organized

Paul Judkins

A little off the boil today but did enough to take the pressure off the defence

Peter Green

Full of running and 100% committed tackles as usual, wasn't given a second to settle on the ball in a busy midfield

Angelo Sanniti

Very confident under pressure bringing the ball under controll seemed to be all across the midfield getting involved in everything

Andy Djemal

Quiet game due to the slopey pitch, did the basics very well and had perfect positioning

Dan Hemmings

Scared the life out of the opposition with his pacey runs down the left, made both goals and didn't stop running

Paul Dobson

Worked hard to get hold of the ball, put lots of pressure on their back line and made them make mistakes

Rob Djemal

Worked their defence by defending from the front and creating space. Took his chances very well

subs

Steve Montgomery

Came on for P Dobson. Very keen as always but not match fit

referee

match report

Watton-At-Stone vs Saracens

After last weeks cup success it was a much harder test this week for the first league game of the season.

Work commitments, injuries and late holidays meant that for the second week running Martin was again named as an outfield sub

the game kicked off in the late summer sunshine and Watton started the game at a high tempo...chasing every ball and closing down the play very quickly. The severe slope of the pitch and the hard ground meant that Watton were favoring the Ariel route and a few early high balls & long throws into the box led to some desperate defending - the crossbar and a couple of good saves from Lee keeping Sarries in the game.

But it was a long throw from Sarries that brought the first real chance of the game. PJ came up to take the throw from the left just about level with the 18yd box, he lobbed it in to Rob who headed towards the top corner only for the keeper to tip the ball at full stretch on to the bar and off for a corner.

Some tough tackling and a greater sense of urgency saw Sarries start to get a foothold into the game. Then 43mins gone a breakaway attack by Watton left Woody with two defenders to deal with and despite a strong suspicion of handball by the Watton forward to bring the ball under control in the box, Woody's shirt pull was spotted by the Ref and the penalty was duly awarded.

It looked like Sarries hard work in getting a foothold into the game was going to be undone but its safe to say that the Watton player had probably been watching too much of the Rugby World Cup as he put the resulting penalty miles over the bar.

This let off seemed to lift the players and with Angelo, Andy & Pete strong in the tackle in midfield they started to impose themselves as an attacking force. The breakthrough came on the stroke of half time. A deep cross whipped into the box by Woody and Rob was inches away from connecting with a diving header, the loose ball was picked up by Dan and crossed back in for Rob to heel the ball home from 2 yards while falling over. 0-1 Saracens 44mins.

Halftime saw some encouraging words from Martin, emphasizing the need to nullify their threat from set pieces and to use the width to get Danny & Andy on the ball more.

With Watton still favoring the high ball into the box, the start of the second half saw some immense defending from Woody, Beechy & Westy at the back and some wasted opportunities from the Watton front line.

Then, with both sides being let down by poor finishing it was left to Danny Hemmings, who had been a constant threat all afternoon to provide a defence splitting header to Rob who cracked a glorious first time shot past the helpless keeper into the top corner. 0-2 Saracens 67mins

The second goal seemed to take all of the fight out of Watton and despite some tinkering with the formation from their manager their profligacy in front of goal and the tremendous work rate from the Sarries team ensured that there was very little chance of forcing the goal that was needed to force themselves back into the game.

With 20 minutes to go Monty came on for Dobbo and Angelo was pushed up front to try to use his strength on the ball to put the Watton defence under even more pressure.

Both teams had further chances to affect the score but at the end of the day Watton could not unlock a solid defensive unit and in the end Sarries ran out comfortable 2-0 winners.

A great result and a battling performance from everyone saw Sarries deservedly take the two points today.

(Report by Steve Wheatcroft)

Asst Manager Rob Djemal said “We made things very difficult for ourselves today due to a lack of organization going backwards, we’ve got new players who are still trying to get to grips with the formation and we rode our luck a little bit but the team never stopped running and battling for 90mins. The difference between the teams was that we took our chances. Well done to the lads and gook luck to Watton.