Crusaders go out to the Wood on penalties

Although the Red Insure Cup was never a priority, and our line-up showed a host of changes, this was nevertheless an extremely disappointing result. 3-1 up at halftime and apparently well in control, we conceded two soft goals and lost our form and shape, and although Mark Draycott had a goal disallowed and was denied another by a goal-line clearance. With the scores level at 90 minutes, we went straight into a penalty shoot-out and young Brendan Norris saved two of Shortwood’s first three penalties, but incredibly, we missed our last three spot kicks to lose 3-2 on penalties when victory had been almost in our grasp.
Rain throughout most of the day made for difficult conditions, but the pitch was perfectly playable and we opened the scoring after only 15 minutes when Alan O’Brien got away on the left and pulled the ball back for Draycott to slot past Tom King, but Shortwood were soon level when Jake Lee scored within a couple of minutes. Another O’Brien cross saw James Rusby head home after 29 minutes, and when King could only parry another O’Brien shot. Draycott was there to make it 3-1 only 2 minutes later.
4 minutes after the interval Norris only managed to parry a shot straight to Josh Egan who drove it low into the net to put the visitors back in the game. Worse was to come, for Norris was well off his line when Gary Horgan sent a weak header straight to Ross Langworthy, who had the easiest of chances to slide the ball into the empty net and level the scores. Although we brought on all three subs we never established control again, although Draycott netted, only for the linesman to flag for offside, and then was denied by an incredible goal-line clearance between King and a fellow defender. And so to a penalty shoot-out in which Norris saved two penalties, but with victory almost there, Matt Collins, James Pilling and James Rusby all missed from the spot to gift the visitor’s victory against all the odds.