Balaga cripple Cowboys

A perfect evening for football greeted Balaga Tongo for their first match of the new summer season. New signing David W had to be happy with a place on the bench for the Balaga opener against new-comers Callas Cowboys. Balaga's starting line-up was:


Balaga wanted to stake a claim for the division 2 title early on this season and saw new-comers Callas Cowboys as a easy enough start, so it was widely thought, as history shows, favourite tags don’t suit the cucumbers, a win wasn’t a fore gone conclusion.

But right from the start Balaga began attacking the Calla defense. A corner kick on the left taken by Parker, was fired into the box where Kev took a left foot shot which appeared to be going in but for a deflection off Webz, who tried his best to avoid the collision. Soon afterwords however, Balaga found the opener with a goal from Rory. A loose ball out the right wing was just about kept in play by Webz who passed it forward to Parker. Steve controlled it and squared it to Rory for the finish.
A second for Balaga was soon to follow, this time Parker was the scorer, a carbon copy of the first, but this time the assist came from Rory. Just before this Phil made way for David W, who was to make his competitive debut for the club. His first piece of action was to find Rory for the midfielders assist to Balaga second goal.

If Balaga thought this was going to be a walk in the park though, they were mistaken. Callas showed good spirit to fight back and began to cause problems in the Balaga defence. Two goals from their best player and a superb save from Damo saw the cucumbers happy enough to be level. The Balaga goalkeeper had to dive full stretch down to his left to divert a Calla free kick around for a corner. A shot by Phil from the right whistled by the Calla keeper’s left hand post. 2-2 at half time.

The second half saw Balaga step up the pressure again, and as a result, had plenty of chances, even the defense got in the action, with Tom O’C taking another shot which was high though, along with Kevin who had a shot on target, and a text book Broderick bullet from outside the box which nestled in the top corner of the net, not the goal net however, the nets to prevent such way ward shots heading out in the road. No such net could prevent Parkers shot soon afterwords though which avoided the nets, the fence, the road and the neighboring wall for the kids to play with in the morning. Although some shots were way ward Balaga did deserve their third and a deserved second of the night for Rory. Unfortunately memories of the goal are sketchy, Phil O’D recalled it was passed in Arsenal style, which would suggest, a move without a finish, or end product so clearly it wasn’t like Arsenals style! Webz, when asked about the goal “I missed it, i was coming off”. From sketchy reports, it was a fine move finished off by Rory, assisted by the inform Parker. Both Parker and Rory were linking up well together with Webz and Phil.

But one goal wasn’t enough, Kevin found David W in the box but for the keeper to react well to save. Balaga had all the possession but the end product wasn’t happening. Then the equalizer came, a result of a free kick with deflected passed a helpless Damo, who still managed to get a hand to it. Not much time was left on the clock for Balaga to take all three points, and from the looks of it, Callas were happy with the draw. A chance fell to Webz to win it but he effort went wide. But soon afterwords, Callas tried to clear the ball, they squared it to their centre back who turn into an onrushing Kevin B. The Balaga defender appeared to block the clearance which rebounded into the Calla net. After the match Parker called it a tackle shot, which was to be the winner for Balaga. 4-3 the final score.


So after week 1 Balaga find themselves in familiar territory, in 4th place behind Rosies, last years runners up Upsetters and new comers to the Wednesday night Division 2 league Mercer, who beat Premier Auto Parts 11-1. Balaga face Auto Parts next week so a much larger crowd of zero is expected for the fixture, as goals are assured.