The Just Return To Winning Ways

 After suffering a few setbacks recently in the league The Just yesterday produced an outstanding attacking performance to see off a Limelite team that will have really fancied themselves to take something from this cup tie. With a place in the semi-finals of the league cup up for grabs The Just couldn’t have been any more bold than to line up with a hitherto untested 3-4-3 formation that could have meant leaving a lot of gaps at the back for Limelite to expose, but defence was not the name of the game for The Just yesterday; it was never in the gameplan to sit back and the extra men in attack certainly paid dividends as the Just quickly raced into a 2-0 lead early in the first half.

Shooting downhill, with the wind and the sun behind them, Limelite must have been looking to take an early lead and get to half time with there noses in front but a not so clean strike from Matthew Glynn – the first of his hat trick – and a good goal from Liam Rogers five minutes later put the Just on what looked a bit like easy street with not even half an hour played. The Just should have been able to keep the marking tight and get to half time with the score at 2-0 but there was a lot more action and drama to come before the first half was out.

A good diagonal ball from the Limelite centre midfielder saw the left winger running through on goal after springing the offside trap, however, this was his first real touch of the ball in the game and was unable to capitalise on the advantage he had gained from the good run in behind and good pass.

However, very soon after this Limelite gave The Just a scare when they managed to get themselves on the scoresheet going against the run of play.

Having just played some good football down the right hand side through Michael Thomson, Paul Glynn and Laurie Flynn, The Just tried to keep the ball on the deck and play it out of a very crowded area with some short sharp passing, only for the ball to be intercepted and immediately played through the ensuing gap in the defence that had been left by the effort to get the ball moving up the park quickly by the three Just stars. Ross Cooper in goals didn’t have his angles right and left a massive gap down to his left hand side for the Limelite striker to roll the ball past him into the bottom corner. A goal that came from slack play and a wake up call to The Just reminding them they were still in a game.

One more goal in the first half for The Just through Colin Parker provided some temporary breathing space until the stroke of half time when Mark Banks reacted to a promiscuous challenge from behind in the centre circle. It is a hard job for referees to make a decision concerning a bad tackle as he has to quickly analyse whether he thinks it deserves a card or not; but if you react violently to a challenge you are making it very easy for the ref to make the decision to send you packing. Referee Menzies was left with no choice when he clearly saw Banks turn and take a swiping kick at the ankle of the player who had just brought him down. Banks, now 31 years old, really should be above this kind of behaviour and will now face a spell on the sidelines at a very critical time in the season. With The Just now through to a semi final and still in with a shout of winning the league Banks really couldn’t have timed his needless sending off much worse.

The loss of a player at the back meant The Just had to re-shuffle and without making any substitutions came out for the second half with a 3-4-2 formation instead of the attacking force that was the 3-4-3. However, it wasn’t to make much of a difference to proceedings as The Just were now shooting downhill with the weather conditions in their favour. As Limelite really had to chase the tie they pushed extra men up front and tried to squeeze the game leaving a lot of space for The Just’s forwards and wingers to exploit. With Steph Wilson in top form in the centre of the park his through balls saw The Just take a 4-1 then a 5-1 lead early in the second half giving them the cushion they needed to go on and produce a confident, good footballing performance which in the end turned out to be there best display of teamwork all season.

The Just manager then put on a couple of subs and changed the formation to accommodate for the fact that Limelite had pushed extra players up front. With defenders on the bench Dave Logan was substituted on for Paul Glynn with Duncan Barr being sacraficed from the forward line to be replaced by Michael Melrose who slotted into midfield. The Just were now playing a 4-4-1 formation and were coping well when top scorer Rogers complained about an injured knee and wanted to come off.

There was no other choice but to throw on centre half come fullback Greig Ruxton at centre forward for the last twenty minutes: Nobody expected Ruxton to have the impact he had on the game but what an impact he turned out to make. Instantly impressing with his first touch and ability to shield the ball he helped set up Matthew Glynn for his hat trick as a warm up to the high point of the game. Ruxton, now in his fourth season with The Just, has never scored in a competitive game before so nobody really knew what was going to happen when Colin Parker squared the ball into the box for him with ten minutes to go. The fact that he had both time and space still didn’t really fill you with confidence that he would score but to his eternal credit Ruxton was the coolest man on the park when that ball came to him. Calmly taking a touch and slotting the ball in the bottom corner he ran off in celebration like he had just scored the winning goal in the world cup final, I personally wouldn’t have liked to have been the first player he ran to and jumped on as I probably would have been flattened by the big guy! Two minutes later Ruxton was involved again for the wrong reasons picking up a booking for a tackle from behind on the Limelite centre half and injuring his arm in the process as he landed on it. The big fairy actually took himself off to hospital after the game, passed out through the pain when the doctor was examining him and got sent home without even as much as a tubigrip for his troubles!

Colin Parker finally rounded the game off for The Just when he rounded the keeper inside the final two minutes to make the scoreline 9-2 to The Just.

One thing that has to be said about Limelite is even when they were suffering the pain of a heavy scoreline they never ever threw in the towel and just would not seem to accept they were beat. This is the kind of character that turns narrow defeats into victories and if they keep it up I’m sure they will go on to have much success in the future.