First half horror show as Nomads fall to disappointing defeat

Nomads made their first visit to the Hillsfield stadium last night as the twice postponed fixture against Rocester eventually took place.

It was not a happy trip for the Nomads as they were beaten 2-0 by the team second bottom in the division, both goals coming in the first 15 minutes. The first was scored in the 9^th minute when poor work defensively allowed the Rocester striker through on goal and he placed the ball comfortably past Dimeji Willan into the corner of the goal. The striker looked to be well offside when receiving the ball but it was not spotted and the goal stood. Nomads should have learned their lesson but just over 5 minutes later the hosts doubled their advantage when more sloppy play defensively allowed them through on goal again and once more there was no mistake with the finish.

Nomads were caught up in the conditions in the first half and were being wasteful with the ball and not controlling it at all and the hosts were comfortable at the back with no real opportunities of note to deal with. The next moment of contention was a blatant stamp on Kieran Alley which was once again missed by the official and resulted in only a yellow card for the home player, much to the disappointment of the Nomads faithful.

HT: Rocester 2 NOMADS 0

The second half saw a change in formation for Nomads as Jake Wright replaced Tom Horner and there was a definite improvement in the way the game was being played. Nomads were creating half chances and were back to their more standard game of pass and move and keeping possession, but efforts from Kyle Foley, George Blackwell, Josh Tinker and Danny McLaughlin were all either wide of the mark, or comfortably saved by the Rocester keeper.

Positives from the game were that 2 players who started the season with the reserves, Harry Shipton and George Howarth, once again made an appearance for the first team and continue to work hard and impress. We go on now to the next match away at the Isle of Man on Saturday where we will be faced with a big crowd and we will be looking at a much improved Nomads performance on the day if we are to get anything from that game.

FT: Rocester 2 NOMADS 0

After the game we got the thoughts of Manager Jake Davies:

“I’ve come away from the game incredibly frustrated and disappointed with a first half performance that’s ultimately cost us the game. Throughout my whole time at Nomads we have developed an ethos, a way of playing, an identity. Whenever you play Nomads you know what your gonna get and be up against and we didn’t show any of our identity in that first half period and this is what has cost us the game.

Whenever we get involved into an end to end game we come of wrong side, we created the game being end to end and all we had to do was impose how we play usually, the players shown a real naivety to come away from our principles and I hadn’t seen this since our game against Maine Road in the early stages of the season. A real learning curve for the players and myself, a reminder there’s a lot of work to do.

At half time there were some home truths said, a lot of emotions clashed and the players responded as expected, we played one of the best halfs of football we’ve played all season in the second half. The pattern of the game, control of the game and pace of the game was brilliant and I was pleased with the second half performance, we didn’t score but my message to the group was that if that was the pattern of the game for 90 mins rather than 45 mins we come away with all 3 points never mind a point.

We’ll work hard Thursday and prepare for the I.O.M trip on Saturday, the biggest challenge I ask of the players now is that we need to see some consistency to give the confidence going into the next season with only 6 games remaining.”

TEAMS

Rocester: Allen, Stevens, Regan, Stanton, Bullock, J Ndene, Holford, Ede, J Hunter, Dyche, Barnes.
Subs: K Hunter, Nutt, D Ndene, Boot, Griffiths

NOMADS: Willan, Coates, Alley, O’Connell, Greenfield, Horner, Milne, Tinker, McLaughlin, Foley, Blackwell
Subs: Wright, Shipton, Howarth. Unused: Wallis, Lewens