Day 231

The Lincoln Reserves hosted Avon Rockleaze in a friendly today. It was a chance for Halstead, Christophe, Atkinson, and Diagouraga to get a bit of match fitness under their belts.

They had a shaky start, but Sam Smith capitalised on weak defending in the fifteenth minute to open the scoring. It looked likely to be one of those games—high on action, low on quality, and high on goals.

Avon Rockleaze equalised five minutes later from a corner, lending credence to instinctual judgement of the match ahead.

Cunningham hit the bar with a great long-range effort in the 27th minute, then Rodney was pulled down while running onto the rebound. Youngster Robert Taylor blasted the resulting penalty wide of goal.

Avon Rockleaze striker Scott Hillier put his side ahead on 31 minutes, nodding a left-wing free kick in from the edge of the six-yard box.

Both goalkeeper Mark Halstead and striker Nialle Rodney went off injured in a woeful first half. Things started to look up in the second period, however, and Lloyd-McGoldrick scored with an opportunistic header in the 55th minute. The Avon Rockleaze goalkeeper was way out of position when Robson crossed to the edge of the box. Lloyd-McGoldrick stooped down and headed the ball towards the empty goal. Scrambling, the keeper was too late. We’d equalised in comical fashion.

Substitute Aaron Rice lasted just a minute on the pitch. He came on for Lloyd-McGoldrick after the goal, then sat down on the edge of the penalty area. He’d hurt himself stretching for the ball, from the looks of it. I wasn’t happy, since I didn’t have another midfielder on the bench to bring on.

My boys looked like the stronger team for the remainder of the match, but they spurned close to a dozen chances. May and Smith both missed easy shots after doing the hard work of setting them up, and May also hit the bar. Laurent, Diagouraga, and Rawdon all wasted opportunities, too. The match ended two goals apiece.

Rice broke his ribs in a strong challenge, and is looking at five to six weeks on the sidelines. That’s a big blow to our Under 18s, for which he’s been playing a starring role.

Mark Halstead is also out for five to six weeks, only for a pulled hamstring. That makes the transition to him as my starting goalkeeper a troublesome one—Putnins finishes his loan at the end of March, but Halstead may not be fit to return until two weeks later (I could potentially rush him back in time for the beginning of April, but that would be risky).