Epping v Millwall 11.10.14

Tale of 2 halves

As was to be expected the 1’s were approaching the match with an air of trepidation, on the back of a disappointing game against Dagenham two weeks ago. The time had come to see if the ghosts of late September could be laid to rest !!

Epping had been fortunate this week to be allocated a top notch official, who by his own admission was used to reffing at a much higher level, and he contributed to a free flowing game.

From the off, Millwall made it very clear that they were not here to make up the numbers, The pressure applied on the men in red and white from the initial whistle was sustained, challenging and at times created unforced errors, which resulted in penalties for the visitors.

Epping for the vast majority of the first half were pinned into their own half, due the pressure applied by Millwall. The superb officiating and the benefit afforded by the slight incline in the pitch which the opposition used to their advantage.

35 minutes in and Epping were down 0-13, without more than a couple of forays into the Millwall half to show for their efforts, the best way to deal with the deficit is to take note of the penalty count and actually address the issues that are causing them, almost immediately this light bulb moment resulted in two quick clinical converted tries before the half time whistle, leaving Epping 14-13 up.

“Seconds out, round two”, the question was, how would Millwall react to this sudden and probably unexpected late change of fortune, especially as they had dominated the territory for the majority of the first 40 minutes. As will come as no surprise, it became evident that they intended to continue in a similar vein and once more applied pressure across most aspects of play. However Epping now were prepared to stick to the half time instructions from the coaching team and focus on ensuring they do not concede points or territory.

A slight tweak of the squad positions and a need to test alternative formations, early in the second half identified a few previously unexploited opportunities in the Millwall defence, which in turn created gaps in a number of channels, which Epping made good use of and started to rack up the score line, however all credit to Millwall, continued to probe and challenge at every opportunity, this remained the case for the rest of the match with Epping gradually pulling away with a points difference which ended 43-24 in favour of Epping.

Next week sees Epping play host to Maldon 3pm KO