Rossington Main 1-1 Hallam

Rossington Main 1-1 Hallam

Northern Counties East League (Division One)

Saturday 18th December 2021

A game of two contrasting styles ended in delight for Rossington Main as Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx forced home an equaliser deep into injury-time - and with practically the last kick of the game - to earn them a point from a fog-effected clash with Hallam at Oxford Street.

Rozzo certainly deserved something as they played the better football throughout and with better finishing could have put their counterparts out of sight quite early on.

Hallam, to their credit, aren't the sort of team who'll just lie down and be steam-rollered. They're challenging for promotion for a reason and having already lost twice (and quite heavily) to Rozzo already this season they were definitely up for a fight and unwilling to let the same thing happen again.

Their style might not have suited the football purists given they took a combative approach from a very early point - notably wanting to prevent Bailey Conway from getting on the ball and influencing things in the middle of the park and, in fairness, their tactics worked.

After a goalless first 45 minutes they took the lead just after half-time through Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx and Rossington looked flustered as horrible low-lying fog made conditions tricky for vast swathes of the second half.

Just when it looked as if it might be one of those days, however, Xxxxxxx popped up to tap the ball home in the third-minute of injury-time to rescue a point which might prove valuable come the end of the campaign given that Rozzo are very much challenging for a play-off place themselves.

Since going top of the league a handful of weeks ago, Ben Hunter's team have endured more than a few stutters which has seen them drift away from pole position. Jack Watson, without doubt one of the most prolific strikers at this level, is expected to be sidelined for the rest of the season and his replacement, Myron Gibbons, has also endured a few knocks and niggles after his blistering start to life at Oxford Street when he couldn't stop scoring. With Niall Doran missing too, and Cameron Barnett a long-term absentee, losing such influencial players capable of turning a game in a single moment has certainly impacted results and probably put paid to any title hopes.

Points 'here and there' has kept Rozzo just about in touch with their fellow Play-Off rivals, however, and a big performance was needed in this game after something of a drubbing at mid-table Ollerton Town in their previous encounter the week before.

The Blues started very positively and brightly, set the tempo, and properly got at their counterparts in the early exchanges with Danny Deakin flashing a free-kick narrowly wide of the left-hand post, Gibbons (available for selection after his recent niggles) involved in a gilt-edged chance just afterwards, before Sam Kitchen then stung the 'keepers gloves with a drive on the quarter-hour mark.

Hallam were quite physical and although they were initially ran ragged to some extent as the first period wore on, they began to execute their own game-plan to good effect, impose themselves physically and put in a few tackles which the referee from the same fixture last season (who remains one of the worst I've seen anywhere in recent times) would probably have shown red to.

Opportunities came to pass at both ends in the freezing cold weather before half-time as the game became stretched to some extent; Hallam perhaps now shading it, but it remained goalless at the interval.