MK M2 vs Henley

Milton Keynes M2 turned up to Fortress Woughton looking to kick start their season on a sunny lunchtime pushback against Henley 2s. The game started in even fashion with both teams finding their feet in the opening exchanges. MK were boosted by the returning Dave MacMillan from a season long injury lay-off, although unfortunately within a few minutes his hamstring decided it would rather sit on the side-lines under an ice-pack, leaving MK with 11 fit players for the remaining 65 minutes.

MK started to win the midfield battle with good work from James Evans, Toby King and Luis Nicholas and a few chances started to flow with tireless running from Toby Zygo and Callum Clarke upfront leading to a few short corners. As it’s still early season the routines weren't quite a well oiled machined yet, but plan F eventually worked with Grant Webster playing the ball to the back post, with a few deflections on the way, to the waiting Ethan Hornshaw who made no mistake to grab the opening goal. 1-0 MK.

Henley grew into the game more, with Ryan Gawley, Matthew Bates and James Cox having to be alert at the back, with Ben Powell marshalling the troops in front of him well, and making a few smart saves to keep the scoreline 1-0 to MK.

Just before half time a flowing move from MK resulted in a ball across the box with a few goal line stick tackles resulting in a penalty flick. Callum confidently stepped up to get his first goal of the season, only for his teammates to watch on in shock as the ball very tamely dribbled into goalkeeper. Rumours are investigations are ongoing at the local bookies following a large in-game bet that a flick would be missed.

In the second half Henley had a succession of short corners, but due to a combination of mis-placed injections from Henley and more good saves from Ben meaning MK kept their lead.

However, as the second half moved on at a frantic pace, MK decided to make it extra hard by playing with 10 men. First to see green was Ethan for not knowing what 5 yards looked like, before Grant saw yellow for one talk with the umpire too many. During this time though MK played their calmest hocket, and a neat move down the left hand side from Toby Z, Matt and James left Callum with the ball in the D to perfectly pick out Toby K to make the score 2-0.

Just as Grant made his way back on, Toby Z also couldn’t measure 5 yards either, and saw yellow as well. He did make it back on the pitch just before the end though to round off the afternoon with a powerful shot from the right hand side of the D that took a wicked deflection over the despairing keeper to leave the final score 3-0 to MK.

Overall a really positive performance with players starting to gel together, and a clear thing to work on at training during the week. Get 5 yards!

Man of the match – Luis – Intelligent runs to set up several chances
Dick of the day – Dav Mac’s hamstring, very closely followed by Callum's "flick"