Iron 2 Hyde 1

[ironmansimon]

What a difference in performances from tuesday to today.
Great start and well taken goal bernie. but the rest of the half we chased shadows. Hyde cut through the middle so easily, and deserved their equaliser. Ok so they a little toothless upfront but no way did they look basement bashing boys. (Hope they do ok in Conference North next season)
PItch looked very soggy and cut up. All in all 3 points from an ugly game Ill take that anytime. Dan finished well for the winner.
Few concerns arouse from today. Missed Deano badly, Kenny looked little boy lost again, Bernies knock hope not to serious and Seans looking very tired and did not put in a performance of any merit, If only Dan was a little taller or Jordan was fit again , I wonder how long Devs keeps the faith.
Match Ratings for me:
Nick-6 Couple of errors but couple of smart saves too
Ryan - 7 Difficult to maurade on such a sticky pitch
Sam -7 Did ok
Alan - 7 Looked a little more exposed without Deano
Painey 6 Couple of rash challenges that had me wondering what colour card was coming out
James 7 Couple of good attacks
Dan S 6 - Not as effective as Tues
Kenny - 5 Ran around with no end product
Josh 6 - Played better on Tues in more advanced position too flat today.
Bernie -7.5 Took goal well and looks class above
Sean - 5 Flapped and moaned like my 3 year old little else ( Sorry)

Luke - Little impact 5
Chez - 4 Looks like needs few games
Dan 7 - Took goal well but must be frustrated to be down pecking order. 2 in 3 games and Seans last goal ..... 28th Sept in the league correct me if I am wrong. Not exactly Suarez or Sturridge?
Bring on Hereford next sat. No win in 5 for them lets make that 6. COYI

[stevet]

3 points and we move on to next sat. Mass my mom, With the last 3 games coming around in the last eight days great point's aquired. Good rest deserved coming up then some fun begins.

[ozbrit]

After the bright start and taking a 4th minute lead, the players may have thought the rest was going to be a walk in the park as Glenn Pennyfather suggested on the BBC Essex commentary, but tiredness must also have played a part. We played a tough game Tuesday while Hyde took a midweek rest.

Three points are always welcome and as pointed out we're 7 points ahead of where we were last season with the same number of games played, so we finished 9th last time, what can we achieve this year 80 points?

The main snag in coming weeks is the fact the Conference has demanded our team plays Sat-Tues-Thurs-Sat starting next Saturday. We don't play this Tues because the league won't permit matches to be played on the same evening as an England 'C' game. As Devs said on BBC Essex, the league wouldn't have been so harsh on the bigger clubs in the league. There's only so much a player can give, the league will have to respect that and the reality that we won't be fielding our strongest side (on paper) for every game.

[littleali]

Jeff Stelling on Sky news was amused when he read Mensah had scored for Brain-tree, I wonder if he knew that we also had Marks & Sparkes in the team?

[rustynail]

Mar 2, 2014 7:50:25 GMT littleali said:

Jeff Stelling on Sky news was amused when he read Mensah had scored for Brain-tree, I wonder if he knew that we also had Marks & Sparkes in the team?

Yes he's done that one when they both scored in a match earlier in the season.

Like Deano I also not match fit yesterday so missed the game.
It sounds like I didn't miss a lot of excitement but at least we won.
Well done the Iron.

[Iron Webbo]

I think we also have a bit of credit to Hyde who, I felt, recovered very well after going a goal behind. OK, being almost certainties for the drop, there is little if any pressure on them and they can almost treat the games as friendlies, whereas our lads are recovering from a two-month mid-season break.

One or two of our lads are playing with or recovering from injuries, but they all are desperate to play and want to give it a go. So, despite all that and the heavy pitches I think 7 points from eight days is remarkable and a big well done is deserved.

We're now entering the 'business part' of the season, where results are more important than Brazilian or Orient-like performances.

There are folk out there doing their very best to make our end of season run-in as difficult as possible, but I think that they might just be a little disappointed.

We likes a challenge, eh?

[rustynail]

Highlights from the Hyde FC site.

www.hydefc.co.uk/videos/braintree-away-1st-march-2014-51799.html

Great goal Bernard.

[dbbn]

Glad to take the 3 points; as the game entered the later stages of the second half; it looked as though we were never going to create another opportunity to take the 3 points. I think Iron Webbo is right about Hyde's outlook; certainly they had nothing to lose and played some decent football on a difficult pitch. I thought they dropped a bit deeper late on in the second half and invited us to try and break them down. The worrying thing for me is the lack of chances we create; I don't see this side scoring 3/4 very often. Defensively we do okay, but lack any guile to play the ball from back to front and instead hit too many aimless long balls hoping to find an orange shirt.
Hopefully Cox will be back soon as Sean as been below standard the last couple of outings and doesn't look as though he could buy a goal at the moment.
Charlie Strutton got us into play off contention with his goals; lets hope Bernard Mensah can now pick up he reigns.

[e7cm7]

Despite the sending off, Hyde were looking to play football & in that respect were surely one of the better sides to visit the Amlin, all credit to them.

[mooresy25]

Fair play to Hyde they played some good football on a poor surface. At times in the first half they had us chasing shadows and looked like a top six side, I'm sure their supporters wish they had a couple of potent strikers to finish off some quality attacking football.

Well done to our boys for digging in after a tricky week and getting the result. MoM for me was Alan Massey - solid performance without his partner.