Division One
Norwich City 2 London Hibs 1
Sunday, 08 January 2006
The players in the Norwich dressing room looked fit, healthy and raring to go after the Christmas break - surely the wrong dressing room, not a mince pie and brandy gorged body to be seen, truly a lean, mean, Hibs caning machine. All was looking good for an unprecedented double over Hibs. At least until warm-up time when it was discovered that Callum 'Captain Marvel' Wilson's butler had forgotten to load the footballs in to the Land Rover. But even this was turned to an advantage when Gallagher's usual "boot as many balls miles high, wide and handsome as possible" pre-match routine was traded in for a proper warm up, Shock. Horror.
First Half
Straight from the kick off it started to go wrong for Hibs. The Norwich boys showing who wanted it more, immediately dispossessing the Hibs front 2 and setting the tone for most of the first half.
Norwich were on top of things easily in the first 10 minutes, winning the 50-50 balls and spraying it around with aplomb, the midfield finding the runs of Stephenson and Gallagher who forced the surprisingly agile Hibs keeper to pull off some good saves.
It wasn't long before the pressure paid off, from a corner on the right hand side, whipped in dangerously by Perrett. The ball fell to Taylor, perfect control and a dash to the by-line mugged the defender all ends up and all the hapless Hibee could do was bring Taylor down. Penalty, and thoroughly deserved. With Davies on the bench, the penalty was anyone?s. Have we ever seen Gallagher move so fast? How come the whole team let him take it? Will he ever take another? Needless to say, it was a great save. Well, it was saved.
This should have been the wake up call Hibs needed and briefly it was, very briefly. However, God was dishing out a harsh kind of justice today and Gallagher was in the firing line. The curse of the gashed head struck again in a Norwich v Hibs clash.
On came super sub Davies, not only devilishly handsome but now sporting double hard bastard head scars too. Game on. More Canary pressure ensued, some magical pass and move football being demonstrated by the yellow midfielders had the Hibees at sixes and sevens, (A green shirted fella, I think it?s a fella, calling himself Rico was heard mentioning how much better we played without the man himself, Barnaldinho. Surely just sour grapes from a jealous flatmate?)
After a solid 5 minutes of champagne footy a free kick was earned, miles out, slightly left of goal. I mean miles, well 30, 40, 50 yards. Perrett stepped up and bent one ?right into the danger zone?. Missed by the now infamous hapless defenders and as Taylor hit the breaks and let it fly right by, the ball nestled into the far corner. 1-0 a quality finish, and meant.
This did wake Hibs up and they started to threaten the yellow goal, bringing some questions to a so far untested debut keeper and boy did he have the answers. Leaping gracefully to tip a vicious shot over the bar and not long after, showing astute awareness to let one hit the post and rebound to safety.
The game had seemingly evened out, but it was again the Canaries who made the most of their chances, Davies picked the ball up showed some silky touches and split the Hibs defence with a pass for Utting to go one-on-one with the keeper and slot coolly past him in to the corner. 2-0. Half time swiftly followed. Hibs rattled, had a half time rant and blaming session.
Second Half
As expected Hibs came out strongly, forcing a couple of corners and for the first time beginning to stretch the Norwich defence. However, Norwich still showed both resilience and flair for the counter-attack and a swift passing move down the left wing and dangerous ball across the six yard box was narrowly missed by Boucher at the end of a 45yard run. Twenty minutes in to the half and starting to panic, Hibs lofted a long ball towards their striker who was still hiding in Taylor?s pocket. Unfortunately he?d been there so long Taylor forgot there was no need for a quick clearance attempt, and swung to volley away, with the ball taking a mid air bobble, before slicing off the outside of his foot and flying in for an own goal. 2-1
Buoyed by the lucky goal, and realising that another Taylor own goal was their most likely route to an equaliser, Hibs persuaded Richardson to brave the rain and wind, and climb out of Taylor?s pocket. But Norwich, reacting the correct way to the minor setback, took control again spreading the play down the wings when going forward and defending in numbers when rarely on the back foot, Higgins mopping up anything that came through and launching new Canary attacks.
15 minutes to go and it was time for a sighting of the much-maligned Bennett who came on for Stephenson, showing cool calm nonchalant touches to hold the ball up. Wilson, Boucher and Parling kept a grip on the midfield, Utting ensured the whole team kept driving forward and Davies kept the game interesting to the end by ballooning over when it was easier to score. A deserved victory for Norwich ? especially as they scored all the goals.
Final score 2-1
MoTM: Howard
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment