Match report
In midweek, Droylsden’s manager said he thought his side were unlucky to lose their FA Cup Second Round replay to Leyton Orient. With the sides level at two goals apiece going into extra time and both down to nine men, he quite fancied his Blue Square Bet North team to edge it in the final 30 minutes. Six unanswered Leyton Orient goals later, Dave Pace’s men were, apparently, on the receiving end of an 8-2 thrashing they didn’t deserve, the result not even beginning to tell the story of the game.
Braintree boss Rod Stringer may have felt something rather similar after seeing his Blue Square Bet South leaders, who were reduced to ten men after 25 minutes, match the Dons in all but one element of a closely fought game. Two goals in the last four minutes gave the scoreline an unrealistic look, and Terry Brown was a relieved man if his post-match interview was anything to go by.
Not only did the game finish superbly for Wimbledon, it had started in near-perfect fashion with an early goal that would have graced any league in the world. Steven Gregory’s neat pass to Chris Bush with eight minutes on the clock saw the Brentford loanee maraud his way past three defenders, exchanging exquisite passes with Danny Kedwell on the edge of the area. As Iron keeper Nathan McDonald and his defenders prepared to deal with a shot, Bush cut back inside and laid an inch-perfect pass across the six-yard box for Christian Jolley to calmly side-foot his ninth goal of the season.
That the Dons waited another 78 minutes before adding to their tally was a constant source of frustration for the crowd of just 1,201, over 2,000 down on the club’s average league attendance.
Braintree’s prolific striker Sean Marks, who before this game was outscoring Kedwell, was left all alone at the far post after a defensive mix-up only to fluff what turned out to be his best chance of the afternoon. By this point the home side could have been out of sight, but some enterprising approach work, more often than not by either Jolley or Bush, was never capitalised upon as the final ball into the box was either over- or underhit, and Braintee’s giant centre-half Adam Bailey-Dennis was never more than comfortably busy.
The visitors created another half-chance that wasn’t taken when Ismail Yakubu was forced to hack a Marks header off his own line, but two minutes later they were a man short. Yakubu’s huge clearance set Kedwell free, and while he was trying to control the bouncing ball as it reached the D, Michael Alaile shoved him in the back, and the referee had no hesitation in brandishing the red card in the Braintree defender’s direction.
It was arguable that Kedwell had been denied an obvious goalscoring opportunity, but the ball was six feet above his head and Alaile was one of three Town defenders within three yards of him, but off Alaile went. Although Sam Hatton’s resultant free-kick was hammered into the wall and cleared, the visitors were now clearly on the back foot.
Or at least they should have been. Hatton had a fantastic chance to double his side’s lead on the half-hour when Luke Moore’s cute through-ball put him in a great position to clip it over McDonald as the keeper narrowed the angle, but the Dons’ right-back drove his shot wide of the far post. Hatton’s 20-yarder shortly afterwards clipped the outside of the post, and a low Kedwell drive stung McDonald’s palms as the Dons tried to kill their Essex opponents off before half-time. But Bailey-Dennis and Phil Starkey, who had moved inside following Alaile’s departure, held firm.
If Terry Brown was quite satisfied with Wimbledon’s first-half showing, despite having only a one-goal lead to show for it, he was positively dissatisfied with what he saw for the first 40 minutes of the second. Anyone who missed the first half would have been forgiven for thinking that the tangerine-clad Iron were the Blue Square Bet Premier leaders and the Dons were down to ten men.
The Wimbledon supporters in the Tempest End hadn’t seen much of the game in the first half, and for most of the second they were watching Braintree control the game 80 yards away. As they grew more frustrated with their side’s inability to keep the ball or their lower league opponents at bay, it was only a combination of poor finishing, weak crossing and Fraser Franks’ mature defending that somehow preserved the Dons’ lead.
Braintree were all over them, and an injury to Yakubu with an hour gone didn’t help much either. Unable to break into anything more than a trot after a late challenge by Jai Reason, Yakubu’s lack of mobility was exposed on more than one occasion by the visitors’ hard-working yet creative midfielders – and the only thing standing between them and a clear sight of Seb Brown’s goal was Franks.
But as the game wore on, Braintree’s numerical disadvantage started to show. Ryan Jackson, who replaced Ricky Wellard 10 minutes into the half, was getting more of the ball and tormenting Town’s talkative skipper Mark Jones, who had been booked for an unpleasant late tackle on Rashid Yussuff in the first half. Midway through the second half, Jackson dummied Jones on the halfway line but was bodychecked and upended in a move that would have looked at home in a WWE bout. Jones somehow escaped without a booking, but it was a clear sign that he was rattled.
When Mark Nwokeji came on for Moore with 12 minutes to go, Wimbledon shifted to a 4-4-2 formation and suddenly gaps started to appear all over the pitch. Braintree had worn themselves out, and the Dons subs’ freshness was the last thing they needed. Chances started accruing but, as in the first half, Wimbledon were profligate to say the least.
Kedwell missed two takable chances, the second from four yards out as he trod on a Bush cross that just eluded Bailey-Dennis’s head when it seemed that he’d side-foot it into the net, and then Jackson failed to make the most of two great opportunities to extend the lead. The Dons seemed intent on walking the ball into the net; as any side that doesn’t boast the likes of Nasri, Fabregas and Arshavin will tell you, sometimes it’s better to shoot from distance and take your chances.
With 10 minutes to go, Marks had the chance to equalise against what was now the run of play, but as his shot whistled inches wide of Brown’s far post, the Dons’ luck turned. Had that effort gone in, Braintree would have fancied their chances of nicking another, but then Bailey-Dennis fouled Nwokeji, and from the quickly taken free-kick Nwokeji rounded McDonald and planted the ball into the far corner of the net, to the audible relief to the Dons supporters and bench and the just as audible annoyance of Town’s boss Stringer.
He was still complaining at how quickly the free-kick was taken when Bush robbed former Dons loanee Ryan Peters, fed Jolley down the left, took the return ball and played in Kedwell, who controlled the pass and hammered an unstoppable 25-yard drive in off the far post to completely kill off any hopes Braintree may have had about making a heroic, if deserved, comeback.
The Dons were through to the Second Round, hoping that they wouldn’t meet a fourth talented and tenacious Blue Square Bet South side. |
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