Kickoff: 4:00pm Saturday, September 11th at Pt. Grey Turf
Having spent the summer designing a plan to lull their 2010-2011 opposition into a false sense of security – a subtle change in the club’s name – reigning CAT Division ‘A’ champions RVSC spent Saturday afternoon doing their best to undo such clever thinking.
On this wet, dearly and frustrating afternoon Rino’s fans were left wondering how a seemingly simple three points were turned into a disappointing one.
The organizational gap between the two opponents was clear from the get-go. RVSC showed up readily prepared and eager to begin the season with twenty-two players dressed. Conversely the Wolves struggled to field ten players for kickoff.
Despite turning this obvious miss-match into early dominance, Rino’s failed to hit the back of the net. This early on in the season the squad can be forgiven for needing some time to gel, particularly with so many players making their club debuts. However, judging by the disarray of the opposition, there was clearly something more than mere cohesion lacking in our performance.
Roughly twenty-five minutes into an otherwise uneventful first half, Rino’s managed to piece together a fluid counter-attacking movement and after good work down the right wing, Ben fired in a cross which was expertly headed home from 8 yards by Max.
To address the fact that twenty-two players were dressed for this game; Rino’s made ten substitutions at half time (only Paulo in goal remained). Management required the chance to see many of the new players in action but the result of the wide-spread changes was unavoidable. While Wolves had been increasingly fighting their way back into the game, our fresh substitutes were simply not up to game speed and were immediately pegged back.
To their credit, Rino’s turned things around and created some good opportunities; Corey firing just wide and Vinny testing the keeper with a chip from 30 yards after clever play from Alex.
However victory was simply not to be for Rino’s. Following a late corner kick for Wolves, a goal-bound header was unceremoniously handled on the goal-line by Yuda. Wolves buried the resulting spot-kick and the game fizzled out with RVSC down to ten men. Unfortunately the only real positive I can see from this performance was the fact that last year we were beat 3-0 on our home opener.
Team: 4-4-2 but too many names to even remember!
Final Score: Rino’s 1 – Wolves 1