On an unseasonably warm afternoon, the Lads recovered from a daft concession to rescue a point in a game that was, for 85 minutes, duller than a flat pint of lager shandy. Sub Amad picked himself up after being tripped in the box to plant the penalty onto the north stand net.
Having endured wintry weather on and off through the week, we found the extra layers a bit uncomfortable with our bus heater set at 28. A very near miss, on Houghton cut (man in small Fiat requiring change of underwear) preceded a quiet hour or so in the town, where it was positively balmy.
Patterson
Hume Batth (c) Ballard O'Nien
Neil Michut
Roberts Ba Clarke
Gelhardt
..and a bench of Bass, Ekwah, Gooch, Bennette, Lihadji, Pritchard, and Amad .
Facing the Roker End, we let them kick off, and it took us three whole minutes to get the ball over halfway - and that was only achieved when Michut was fouled. Roberts did well down the right and we should really have at least got a shot on target as he left defenders on the ground, but we didn't. After quarter of an hour Luton should have forced Patto into action, but scooped a shot hopelessly high from the edge of the box. An awful effort which pretty much summed up the first half, although Smooch did play in Clarke soon after with a terrific pass, but Neil's shot flew either just wide or off the outside then of the keeper's left hand post.
Luton looked exceedingly disinterested in any sort of urgency, even when we played a hospital pass to Neil in the centre circle that gave them the chance to break forward. They don't score many, they don't concede many, that was obvious.
As the half hour passed, we were wondering how to give Roberts and Clarke a kick up the arse to elicit an end product. To be honest, Paddy looked paggered for long periods, but with him you know there's always something about to burst out. In the first half, it just didn't. I think there were two added minutes, there'd been one shot on target each, and Bobby Park - what a player -did the halftime draw, and we were off again with no changes when we thought there should have been at least one.
Michut took one in the face on halfway, Patto was called into action with a smart save low to his left, then the ref - who'd been spectacularly good compared to recent officials- allowed Luton to take a free yards from its proper position, they did a clever one-two, and fired it in off a leg or two. Even with 40 minutes to go, we'd not done much to suggest we could get a goal of our own, so we in the stands were a bit down to say the least.
We forced a couple of corners, with Smooch having a shot saved before Roberts put in possibly the worst cross if his career. On 54 Ba made way for Amad, and we had hope that he'd spark some life into the game. He did, but there was still a lack of end product and their keeper could spend more time refastening his gloves. With Amad tending to the right, Joff had even less support, and a couple of quickfire yellows for the visitors were at least a bit of action. Luke then played Clarke in, but when he cut it back to Joff, he was crowded and the shot was wide after a rotten bounce.
With twenty to go, off went Hume, Neil, Gelhardt, and Michut with Ekwah, Bennette, Gooch, and Pritch coming on. It took a while for them to settle in, but Gooch's forceful runs down the left hand the visitors on the back foot as we went three at the back.
There were six minutes left when Amad was tripped, the ref didn't respond, but this linesman did - and Amad picked himself up to plant the penalty high to the keeper's left.
Boom. Get in. The last five, plus the same amount of added time, were 90% us pressing, but we couldn't get the winner.
Draw? Fair. Man of the Match? I thought Hume.
