On a cloudy, starless night the Rino’s lit up the night with their own emerging stars. This was possibly the biggest game in the first quarter of our season. A loss here would push us to the bottom of the pile, while a win would propel us to the top 6 in the league. Sensing the pressure bearing down on these young Rino’s to follow in the footsteps of previous teams, Haydn brought out the big guns; he pulled out the old red Rino jerseys to help guide his young team about Rino’s winning ways.
As soon as the whistle blew, this team in its blood red jersey’s, looked exactly like previous Rino squads. They were flying around, pressuring every ball, and made every player on the other team dread getting the ball. All those uber-complicated drills that we ran with Ekrem at practice finally started to pay off. When we touched the ball we showed the discipline, urgency and ability of an emerging star studded team. With every pass we penetrated Inter’s defense, and had legitimate chances to get the numbers rolling on our scoreboard.
Each and every one of our 17 players brought their A game and left it all on the field and were crucial in getting the W! John, Davis, Jeff and Max created their own defensive islands on the outside and stranded any striker coming down into their area. Sebastian, Juan, David, Jonah, John and Petro dominated the center of the pitch and their one touch passing completely disseminated the Inter defence.
The TSN turning point of the game came midway through the second half when Davis lit the Rino’s on fire by scoring the game-winning goal. Off a corner kick, that was bent into the center of the 18 yr box, Dhiren got up and tried to head it into the top corner of the goal, but it was blocked. Davis saw this ball slowly falling to the ground and recognized his chance to propel the Rinos to their first W and took it! He wound up his left leg and let it loose on the unarmed ball, sending it to a place where all it touched was net.
Davis’s goal gashed Inter and now they were bleeding. The Rino’s smelt this and attacked in swarms for the last 15 minutes of the game. We kept Inter pinned down and didn’t let up until the ref forced us to by blowing his whistle.
We’re going to enjoy this win at practice on Tuesday, but come Thursday, it’s time to prepare for the Sapperton Rovers. The Rovers have kept pace with some of the top teams in the league, but are still looking for their first win…..and the Rino’s plan on keeping the Rovers on their search for that elusive win after next week.
Next Saturday night, when everyone else will be home stuffing themselves with Turkey, these Rino boys will be out in New Westminster fighting for their 1st road win of the season!