Came up short

The great schemer had great plans for this weekend - share out the resources across 2 teams... but of course the plans changed with each day as players kept changing availability... use the app guys! (i ended up being the schemers apprentice (with little notice, but we got on with it).

Behind the scenes work is rarely seen, but always appreciated - teams are selected, notified and adjustments made if selection is rejected.
In the car park beforehand, a convention of the yellow Forest supporters club tried to take over from the travelling Da's club (with Simon unavailable, we were one Da short, and sometimes the travelling is just to Whitechurch, so it may have been the first game missed this season).
On the day, an eclectic bunch e turned out, the great schemer hadn't quite passed on the actual scheme, so I made the rest of it up.. in as much as we reused the usual tactics with new personnel, it was good to see little Ben back and he brought other family members with him. There will be no slagging as the brother created the chances he missed.
But it was an enjoyable game, and we improved from 7 goals conceded earlier in the season to 1... we just couldn't manage to get anything out of the game (Mattie aside who created some good chances...but, we did score nil).
Moose was back and as fast as ever (sort of), so there was another level of solidity at the back.. we defended stoutly all day,the only goal from a penalty corner breakdown.
The panel was depleted by injury before the end and the players had the sense to put their hands up and ask for replacements so as not to let the team down. (the young are way better at that than the old fogies who play on with injury).

In the end we just came up short, but in the overall scheme of things the 4ths won (so the great schemer succeeded - almost doubly so).

As for the bus into to DTwo - stories of Dog-eaters in Harolds cross will take some therapy to cure (El Presidente did assure me I was entitled to a drink for the trauma)!
Another first team opponent next week (2nd place team away)...does it get get easy ?