What a difference a week can make ...

In last week's practice match Virginia were probably the better team and went down 2-1, this time I think all would agree that the Grangers probably deserved a win but went down 2-1. The difference, once again what happened at either end.

Despite a slow start by Grange it didn't take long to get on top of Virginia. There were a couple of anxious moments early on at the back but these seemed to be resolved when Anthony came onto the pitch to dominate the backline.

Rob was definitley making a difference in the middle and with improved passing the chances started to come. It was John who struck first with a well won header from a corner.

High drama was to come soon after when a back pass was pushed away by Troyo. The ref (after being advised by the Virginia players) decided this should be a free kick 6 yards out. This was well kept out by the charging Grange players.

Half Time: 1-Nil to Grange, and it looked like we were going to give Izzy the send off he deserved.

Unfortunately our second half continues to be a problem. Maybe we need to play 45 minutes games?

Early in the second half, a poor clearance by Ray put the ball back to a opposition player out on the right. His cross was a little bit difficult to handle and somehow the ball curled, spun and bounced its way into the back of the net.

This seemed to lift both teams, but it was Viirgina who scored again to take the lead. A mix up at the top of the box saw a Virginia player put the ball into an empty net.

Grange tried hard and had a number of chances to score near the end but as per our past 3 games, we were not able to score in the second half and time finally ran out.

This makes our first half stats from 4 games as 8 goals to 1 for and second half stats 0 for and 7 against. Why this has happened can be anyones guess ...

All in all, this was a good performance from Grange with a number of positives with improved passing being one of the higlights.

Quote of the match: "F#@k off ref". John. (Giving the referee an explantation of the heading rule.)