Bad Day at the Office
Skrill South
Boreham Wood 1 Hayes & Yeading United 3
by John Mead
It was “Not a good day at the office” for Ian Allinson seeing his side comprehensively swept aside on home soil.
Wood had problems before the Kick Off, with Callum Reynolds still injured, Charlie O’Loughlin missing through illness and Mark Bentley still suspended. Missing three players is bad enough, but when they are all centre backs it left the Wood Boss with a conundrum.
“I set up a system which I thought would be good enough to approach the game with, but I was wrong. We allowed them to get into areas which we should not have done and the manner of the three goals we conceded was very disappointing.”
Indeed playing with Luke Garrard in the centre of a back three flanked by Ben Nunn and Mark Jones proved to be a big ask on the afternoon. Yet Wood were handed a gift goal after five minutes when visiting centre forward Jake Reid inadvertently powered a header past his own ‘keeper from Graeme Montgomery’s corner.
It did not take the visitors long to equalise however when just three minutes later Jones allowed Frankie Merrifield to supply a ball from the left to Kamaron English. The makeshift defence left James Russell exposed with the ‘keeper losing the race to the ball with Luke Williams, who equalised from eight yards out.
It went from bad to worse for Wood after nineteen minutes. A left sided curling cross from Adam Everitt found English in acres of space. Russell seemingly had his angles covered, yet the eighteen year old ex-Watford player miss hit his shot which beat Russell at his near post.
Wood were bolstered by the return of Sam Cox in midfield against his former employees and his contribution showed what an excellent signing he is. However the distribution chain often broke down after Cox had played his part, leaving Mikhael Jaimez-Ruiz an easy afternoon in the U’s goal.
Wood struggled to find a way past a resolute defence with Charlie Wassmer winning every ball and epitomising just how much impact a decent centre back can have on the outcome of a game.
Donovan Simmonds shot wide after Matty Whichelow held the ball up, before Montgomery went just wide with an effort from thirty-five yards.
The visitors could have been out of sight before the interval when Jones failed to track the run of English and he and Reid broke from their own half. Reid accepted a return ball firing a decent effort that Russell could only parry to the feet of English. Unfortunately the youngster lost his composure firing wide of what was an open goal.
Wood tried to regroup after the break with Whichelow heading just over, whilst Simmonds was denied in front of goal by a Jack Mills interception. A spell of misguided passes put the visitors back in charge with Russell saving superbly to deny Williams a second goal. With twenty four minutes remaining Allinson introduced Raheem Sterling-Parker and Rob Hastings to try and kick start the afternoon, but it was not to be.
Four minutes later Williams swung over a corner from the left and Dean Inman left Garrard exposed powering home his header to complete the scoring.
Into stoppage time there was a great opportunity for Hastings to reduce the deficit when Cox guided a header through to the former PASE player yet he failed to connect cleanly which summed up Wood’s afternoon. A bizarre ten and a half minutes of stoppage time was played on an afternoon when not only the Referee’s watch malfunctioned.
In summary Ian Allinson concluded, “We need to go again in forty-eight hours with a difficult game at Staines Town. We will have Mark Bentley back, but Charlie O’Loughlin is still a week away and Callum Reynolds will need longer than that. For me today Sam Cox was by far our best player, whilst others seemed to lack the hunger we needed to show.”
Team: Russell, Nunn, Jones, Cox, Garrard, Ball, Noto (Sub – Sterling-Parker 67 mins.), Whichelow (Sub – Willock 72 mins.), Simmonds (Sub – Hastings 67 mins.), Morgan, Montgomery.
Subs (Not used): Doolan, Brown.
Goals: Boreham Wood: Reid (Own Goal) 5. Hayes & Yeading United: Williams 8, English 19, Inman 70.
Wood Man of the Match: Sam Cox.
