Another excellent performance from Tigers on a very cold and frosty morning at Stapleford.  The game was delayed by 15 minutes to allow the the pitch to thaw out.  As a result the pitch was very hard and bobbly which made controlling the football very difficult.  However, Tigers adapted to this much better than Claypole and produced some great football in the first half.  Tigers' midfield trio of Max Hamilton, Samuel Buchan and Thomas Potter were once again controlling the game with Max in particular pulling the strings on the right hand side.

Once again our achilles heal was our inability to finish off the numerous chances we create and we saw a number of missed chances before Jacob got on the end of a Thomas cross to slot in from close range.  Shots continued to rain down on Claypole's goal but a combination of poor finshing and good goal keeping kept Claypole in the game.  Some great individual skill on the right saw Max beat a defender before hitting a long range shot into the far bottom corner.  Max soon added to this tally when he controlled a fierce shot from Sam Buchan before turning and calmly placing the ball into the bottom corner.

Three nil at half time and it looked liked Tigers would go on to score another 5 or 6.  Claypole spent much of the half penned into their own half and in goal Harry didn't have a shot to save.

As has often been the case this season the players lost a little focus in the 2nd half and didn't quite pass the ball with as much fluidity as they had in the 1st.  The introduction of Sam and Charlie Pick and James Martin pepped things up and it wasn't long before Sam capitalised on a Claypole defensive error to notch his 17th goal of the season.

It must be noted that the Tigers' defence were once again outstanding with Sam Newton, Charlie Pick and George Wharam-Lewis providing excellent protection for Harry in goal and this was a key reason why Tigers recorded their 7th clean sheet of the season. 

With a little more luck Tigers could have scored a few more but it was a good performance and a well deserved result.

Well done boys.

Man of the Match:  Sam Newton

Player of the Match: Max Hamilton