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Misato, Sun 25th Feb. For the first time in 2007 the Geckoes were able to have a mostly full strength squad for the Footy Japan Cup game v the Kanto Celts. In what was expected to be a close game, the Geckoes were after revenge for their 2-1 reversal a few weeks ago and were somewhat pleased to see that a few of the Celts had been out to watch the rugby the previous night.
So unsurprisingly the Geckoes started the quickest with Simon Bromwell hitting the bar in the first couple of minutes. The early pressure soon told as the Geckoes took the lead from Paul James after a good cross from Kazu Kikuchi.
The second came soon after, with a free kick from Simon Bromwell. The Celts were still organising their wall, when Brommie slotted the ball into the empty net. Although the Celts weren’t too happy with the goal being given, there were thankfully no Lille style walk-off protests. Number three followed soon after when Mikkel Troen went on a run from midfield, he was fouled on the edge of the box but continued his run before being hacked down again by the same player leaving Quentin (who was deputizing for the late arriving ref) with little choice but award the spot kick. Mikkel stepped up himself to make it 3-0.
The fourth was the goal of the game with Kazu cracking an unstoppable shot into the top corner from the edge of the box and then He scored again to make it 5-0 after 25 minutes.
However, it wasn’t only the attackers who were playing well. It was the best team performance for sometime with Spencer being very instrumental in breaking up the Celts attacks and the defence was very solid with Ian playing well in the middle and Pete and Nick having good games at full back. Charles was more vocal than usual in goal and Kevin had his best game for a long time.
A couple of substitutions led to the Geckoes having an even more attacking outlook with Nat coming on at fullback and Jonathan being replaced by Rob and it wasn’t long before it was 6-0 with Kazu playing a defence splitting pass for Rob Manager to lob the ball over the Celts keeper.
6-0 at half time and for the first 15 minutes of the second it stayed that way before Mikkel latched on to what could only be called a “breast down” from Rob after another good Brommie corner.
Number 8 soon followed after another good piece of play from Kazu led to Rob beating Mikkel and Brommie to blast home from 5 yards and the scoring was finished by Man of the match Kazu who controlled Rob’s pass before beating the keeper from 15 yards.
There were chances to get 10 but none could be converted and the game finished 9-0 to the Geckoes and they stormed into the semifinals for the first time in their history.
Report by Rob Manager
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