Saints 1 - 0 Hamburglars

This is was a solid team performance, and I felt we played exceptionally well, save our finishing. With Adonis out, I moved back to CB alongside Forest. Jorge was nursing a leg injury, so he wasn't running at 100% speed, however that was more than made up for by our captain, Mark Lawlor, who controlled the middle of the park. The match was pretty sloppy up front as we would get into dangerous positions, and squander the chance time and time again. I believe both drew and Kozar both rounded their keeper, only to get of weak shots that were easily clear by the Hamburg defense. Jorge had a great chance on a header cleared off the line. Kerri had some great hold-up play, and Holmes went on a couple of mazy runs through the box, but really the end-product let us down time and again. Nil-Nil at HT.  Into the second half this was beginning to feel like a carbon copy of our frustrating match v Catan, where we couldn't buy a goal despite the superiority. Kozar headed a bullet off of a Holmes cross, but it was right at their keeper. Kerri hit wide, then Drew hit it over the bar (as is customary). Finally we broke though as Kerri was able to pot one on a through-ball from Nick Kurek at left back. At the time, we'd had so many chances on goal, I think we were actually surprised and caught off-guard as one of them actually went in. On defense we had a relatively easy day. Hamburg looked most threatening with Hayes coming forward on the counter, but this happened very infrequently. I think he had one shot from a bad angle in the first half. In the second they had a semi-breakaway, but i was able to catch up to the guy (green shoes) and do enough to put him off. From my completely unbiased and critical perspective, we should have scored 5 or 6 goals yesterday. Finishing is on our training agenda. I would like to give credit to Hamburg's back line, they played a very resolute game back there, and I would also like to say that they were some pretty affable and good-natured opponents. This was a relatively clean and fair contest, well-refereed, and we enjoyed the afternoon with Hamburg.

Maybe we'll have a BBQ this Sunday given the off week. FC Aftershock owe us a goat.

Agree with most of this here, I don't think the game was as close as our Twitter manager made this out to be but the fact was we were still in a position to win this game for much of the contest. Injuries in the middle of the field have derailed our possession game so far this season and once again we were forced to defend and counter, bend but don't break. Matt Hamister was out of town so we were also missing some firepower up front - that being said Matt Eich stepped up nicely, getting two good chances while the game was still 0-0. One in the first half which he put low far side that was just wide and the aforementioned breakaway that was very nicely recovered on by the defender who made the tackle without fouling. In retrospect perhaps Eich should have fired one touch earlier. Had we taken care of our couple of opportunities we could have stolen at least a point here but didn't finish. Best of luck the rest of way to Saints they have a nice looking team.