On Saturday our Reserves welcomed Falmouth United to Penlee Park (writes Penzance Reserves joint Manager, Daz Smith).
After a lack lustre second half capitulation against Mullion in the cup the lads needed to step up and be counted.
An away draw and a home loss against Falmouth last season meant we had to turn up and put a shift in and thankfully the lads delivered.
Harvie started in goal with a back four line up of Lewis, Sam , Steve and the returning Kai Baxter.
Having watched Newlyn play Falmouth earlier in the season we were quite aware that central midfield was their strongest positions and so we opted for a 5 man midfield. Tyler, Freddie, Reevesy, Joel and Adam were given the job respectively with Kizzy leading the line up top.
The lads flew out of the blocks and we quickly found ourselves one nil up thanks to Kizzy.
However after twenty minutes, a nasty tackle on the returning from injury Reevesy saw the Falmouth player booked and Reevesy forced off with a calf injury.
Moments later Tyler raced through and grabbed a second for us before Sam put us three up with a tidy finish going into halftime.
Halftime was a pretty easy team talk with the instruction continuing the intensity whilst at times bypassing the midfield due to the congestion in the middle of the park.
We knew Falmouth would have to come out in the second half with all guns blazing so a double pivot was our only tweek to the system.
Two more goals went in thanks to Kizzy before a triple substitution on 65 minutes. Dylan and Fin came on for Adam and Tyler , whilst Ollie came on for Steve.
Falmouth did claw two goals back , but the game was all but done. A late change saw Connor replace Freddie, before the final whistle blew.
A fantastic collective performance yesterday from the lads , with some excellent football being played at times. Everyone worked their socks off, both in possession and out just as we asked before kick off.
Several contenders for the man of the match award yesterday, with Sam, Adam, Joel and Kai all having excellent games, Kizzy would have been an obvious choice for his goals, however in the end we opted for Harvie. Harvie made a fantastic save at one nil , before assisting in our first goal. He also made another top save late on after a deflected shot wrong footed him, but he got fingertips to the ball and tipped it around the post.
We now face an anxious wait on Reevesys injury, before next week's away fixture.
I messaged Lee later on last night as always to chat about the game, and Lee said, "I felt the attitude was right yesterday from the moment the lads arrived at the clubhouse, the warm up was very good and that continued into the game itself, I'm ver proud of them all after a great performance".
Ft Result
Penzance Reserves 5-2 Falmouth United
Goal scorers
Kizzy 3
Tyler
Sam
Man of the match
Harvie