This was a much closer game than the score suggests, and against a very experienced team that are one of the favourites to win the league.
The Reserves more than held their own for the first thirty minutes of the game when the home side struggled to find their rhythm, and get into the game. In that time United had at least three good chances to have taken the lead the best of these falling to Darren Orchard. Ham Rec were fortunate when they did take the lead after thirty two minutes as it was against ten men. United centre half Sean Griffiths had left the field following a hand injury, but was unable to get back on the field in time to help defend the goal from veteran centre forward Chris Riggler. United had not fully recovered when the same player scored a second goal, this time taking full advantage of some slack marking, and the room he was given. The score remained 2-0 at the break.
The Reserves made changes after the interval, and one of these Gary Williams on for Joe Kittle pulled a goal back with fifteen minutes to go. United were unable to push on and equalise and any hope of recovery disappeared when  Riggler completed his hat trick to make the final score 3-1 to the Rec. 

Team:  G. Smart, R. Flower, D. Watts, S. Leaton, S. Griffiths, D. Frake, M. Wynne, D. Orchard, J. Kittle (G. Williams), K. Middleton (R.Ward). Unused Subs: J. Johnson, D. Williams, K. Killick

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 6:47 pm and is filed under Match Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.