Fever crashed back down to earth after they were found out by a far more committed and technically superior side.
In a tight first period, the only differences in the two sides were Fevers 2 new recruits – Alex Rowe and Simon Williamson. Rowe had a solitary sniff at goal, thanks to a long punt up field by keeper Andrew Ritchie, and showed his class and composure by outpacing the HBC defense and finishing with aplomb to give Fever the lead. At the other end, Williamson has quickly established himself as a formidable member of the defensive unit and put his body on the line and made numerous saving challenges to keep the advancing HBC attackers at bay. 1-0 Fever after 30 minutes.
Fever were expecting a rough physical battle, and seemed completely unprepared to compete against a technical side, who retained the ball well and dominated the game in a controlled manner on the deck. As so often the case, games are won and lost in midfield, and the Fever midfield were getting torn apart, and on the rare occasion they managed to get the ball, they simply couldn’t complete the simplest of passes. Not long into the second period, HBC restored parity with an excellent solo effort from outside the box which left Ritchie with no chance. 1-1. Fever’s attackers were feeding off scraps, hopeful long balls at best, with the midfield bereft of any imagination and composure on the ball, and were made to look sluggish by their opponents persistent and intelligent off the ball movement. HBC introduced a pacy attacker who began to cause them all kinds of problems with his athleticism and trickery, but it was Fever, against the run of play, who took the lead through returning club captain Fil Pusnik. Greg Cross marauded forward, nearly getting a nose bleed he was so far up the pitch, and he found the perfectly weighted pace to split the HBC defense and feed Pusnik whose slide rule driving finish beat the keeper with ease. 2-1 Fever. However, as Dennis Byrne highlighted at the interval, Fever were still celebrating in their heads when HBC kicked off and converted a chance through their new pacy front man to restore parity. 2-2. During this period, Sebastian Auger, an unused weapon who cut a forlorn figure out on the wing, negatively expressed his frustration through lashing out on a number of occasions, and incessantly fouled his way into an unnecessary booking, along with Peter Sheerin, whose robust approach was punished by the finicky referee.
The weary Gareth Fannin came off in the 3rd period, replaced by Auger in the middle, with Pallos Levente coming in on the wing, but the game had already been set into an irreversible battle of defense and attack. HBC looked far fitter and came at Fever with wave after wave of attack, with Fever only able to reply with hopeless long balls that the tiring Rowe could no longer muster the energy to chase down. The midfield was bypassed completely and Fever were unable to string any meaningful combinations of passes together, and with 10 minutes to go, they were punished. 3-2 HBC. The aforementioned pacy HBC front man put them to the sword again, but he will be remembered for his theatrics, as he spent more time on his back moaning than a cheap prostitute, and unsportsmanlike behavior more than his ability.
Fever will look to bounce back next week and avenge this result later in the season, but a great deal of hard work will be required to turn things around. There was a feeling that certain players became cocky in the wake of their opening day demolition of INTs, and the midfield in particular will have to start taking more responsibility and play to the best of their ability to help support the team’s talented strikers, and help alleviate the pressure on their resilient defenders