Shaftsbury Crusade 5 – 4 Bristol Athletic
Even the most loyal fans would describe Bristol Athletic’s first match back in the league as at the very least “woeful” . Family, friends and players had been waiting for this first competitive match for weeks but a sub standard performance was what they got.
From kick off Athletic looked shaky on a hard and bobbly pitch they struggled to string passes together, a lack of communication on 10 minutes saw a Shaftsbury winger break through leaving centre back Mitch Harrison one on one, a crude sweep in the penalty box saw the winger brought down and a resulting penalty that was converted. In truth Bristol Athletic have a goalkeeping issue but despite that, the number of high quality and experienced players representing the jaguars should have meant a decent result. Instead we had a first half offering of mainly route one balls to both Shah Bhakerd and Raphael Waugh who struggled to make any meaningful impact in the last third and a midfield who were constantly a yard off the pace making it difficult for the team to work effectively as a unit. A real lack of early passing and one or two touch football meant Athletic were being caught constantly in possession leading to a string of mistakes and a deficit of three goals by half time.
Despite some substitutions, things improved for a while but more of the same followed and with 30 minutes to go Athletic were trailing 5-1. Some positional changes included a debut for Jabari Ngozi who bagged a hatrick by the time the referee blew the final whistle which in a strange kind of way made things even worse for Athletic as they were left pondering the thought “If only they’d played like a team much earlier on” It would have been three points on the board.
In fairness the Shaftsbury goalkeeper did make a string of exceptional saves in the second half making Athletics goalkeeping issue even more prominent.
Next week sees the first home game of the season for the Jaguars at Netham Park. The big question is, will the lessons be learned in front of an expectant home crowd.