Manager Paul Halsey was pleased with the result and his team’s performance. On this showing there seems a considerable difference in this team from those at the start of the league season.
Not so different to the previous game at Milton Keynes however. Ware fielded almost the same outfield starting lineup for this game as they did in their previous match. Are they finding stability and if so will that lead to more wins like this one?
As for the visitors, despite enjoying a reasonable amount of possession, they rarely threatened the Ware goal. Max Woodford, playing his first full 90 minutes for the club, had nothing difficult to deal with. He will probably appreciate being eased into the side in this way after his sending off three weeks earlier.
In front of him was a team that played confidently with, in particular, Herbie Townsend and Sami Moutawafiq complementing each other on either side of midfield. There was good form from Rechan Esprit too who had been on the losing side twice last season playing for Binfield against “The Lane”. He made up for it in this game, playing long and accurate passes out to the wide areas enabling Ware to penetrate the visiting defence.
The icing on the cake of Townsend’s performance was his first goal for the club twenty minutes into this game. His provider was Theo Ofori who put in his usual hard working performance. He is the top scorer so far this season but he emphasised his wider benefit to the team with assists for all three goals.
His skill at taking the ball past defenders is sometimes criticised when he fails to find or ignores the opportunity to pass when it is the better option. On the half hour he carried the ball wide down the right flank opening up the defence whilst Recce Beckles-Richards took advantage of a big gap on the edge of the Lane’s penalty area.
Beckles-Richards was clearly frustrated when there was no attempt to give him the ball but he was compensated two minutes before the scheduled and of the half. Ofori stole the ball from the opposition and again worked his way forward. This time he saw Beckles-Richards, laid the ball off to him and the number nine scored low into the net.
Ofori did it again two minutes later, jinking past two defenders before spotting Sam Mayuma in the area. Momentarily blocked off, Mayuma took the ball round his marker before shooting home.
There were high expectations for more goals in the second half but they were never realised. Chances came, not least for Gabriel Chapps whose shot hit the underside of the Lane’s bar and bounced down in front of goal before one of two Ware forwards tucked it in the net. As it was they were both offside.
The visitors enjoyed periods of possession but too often gave the ball away quite unnecessarily with wayward passes that went straight to a Ware man. Meanwhile, whilst Ware racked up a significant number of corners the Lane didn’t win one until late in the second half.
Ware were becoming more casual at times and sometimes opted for long range shots rather than working the ball closer to goal. This and the inevitable turnover of substitutes seemed to take the bite out of their game.
With the points seemingly in the bag and with Wednesday’s game away to Enfield the new focus it was only good sense to rest some players and get game time in for others. In this instance the most notable “other” was Bendie Idikayi, once of Rayners Lane himself, and signed in midweek. He is well over six feet tall and is a central defender but looked dangerous in the opposition area at corners.
Ware will face sterner tests than this one in the coming months but showed in this game that they have the potential to do well. For the moment at least they are also the highest scoring team in the division.
Line-ups and cards.
Ware: Max Woodford, Finlay Titchmarsh (George Alfieri 73mins), Josip Jevdjic, Sami Moutawafiq, Jack Grosvenor, Josh Okotcha (Bendie Idikayi 73mins), Theo Ofori, Herbie Townsend (Max Granville 70mins), Reece Beckles-Richards (Caiden Remy-Dee 70mins), Rechan Esprit (Gabriel Chapps 73mins), Sam Mayuma (Huseyin Yildiz 83mins).
Yellow card: Theo Ofori 90+3 minutes.
Rayners Lane: Charlie Patmore, Alison De Pavia, Reece Jhuti (Kean Graver 53mins), Frankie Bircham, Kombe Kawimbe, Frankie Taylor (Hafid Bounyafe 79mins), Adeyemi Adewale, Jeremy Stewart, Qasim Khan, Bobby Bircham (Jordi Mumbiny 59mins), Max Holland.
