Barely 2 Reunion 5

Barely Line Up:

In goal: Steve

Back four: Rich, Phil, Danny, Andy

Midfield: Jerry, Sam, Jim, Rich

Attack: Mani and Nick

Rolling subs from: Dave, Lee, and Ioan.

After a few days of torrential rain the sun was shining on Bristol as the match kicked off, in much the same way it probably shone on Rome as it burned. As one might expect, the champions took the game to Barely in the opening stages. They had some well-rehearsed wing play and the flanks were where they stationed their most mobile players, so Barely's full-backs were being sorely tested. They held up.

Gaining confidence from the defence, Barely started making some inroads in attack as sweeping moves crossed the midfield and ended with Jerry or Rich (smouldering grey eyes), or just as often the swashbuckling Andy and Rich (deep blue eyes), knocking crosses into the box. But Reunion held firm - at least until a low square ball was swept home by Mani to give Barely an unlikely lead.

And having taken the lead it was suddenly Barely playing like champions as they mopped up Reunion attacks and broke into the opposition half in numbers - low numbers, admittedly, but when they include the unstoppable piston-legs of Rich (grey eyes) the long-distance engine of Andy and the I-can-knock-it-just-past-the-woodwork-from-anywhere accuracy of Mani and Nick, Reunion knew they were playing with fire. And shortly after Barely's opener they burnt their fingers and went running to mummy after conceding a second, when Rich's (blue eyes) cross was fumbled by the keeper into his own net. "The sun played a part" Rich admitted later, "But me and the sun are old mates" he added.

However Barely's delight faded quickly when Phil - hitherto the impenetrable fortress of throw-in concession - decided to vary his game with a back-pass that was marginally underhit. Steve's goalkeeping prowess was there for all to see as he smothered the ball, but it broke loose for the attacker to knock it home and make the score 2-1. And that goal was enough for Runion to raise their game and put Barely under the cosh until half-time.

Unfortunately the less said about the second half the better. Despite the introduction of Barely's own Roy Keane in Dave Williams, Barely seemed to lack fire in the second half and Reunion sensed opportunity. After a few minutes of shadowboxing they moved in for a quick one-two and twatted Barely into the floor, grabbing a 3-2 initiative even though Barely, at this point, were creating chances.

Rich (grey eyes) acted swiftly, shuffling his pack and bringing on Lee and returning Sam to the fray (perhaps deciding against returning Jim to the field whilst his pallor remained somewhat ashen.) Unfortunately neither had the impact they would have liked - watching from the left as Reunion strode through the midfield to add two more goals to the gloom before the death - which was exactly what it felt like.

As mentioned in previous posts this defeat smarted, but it must be said Union in general seemed a decent side. They just had the bad form to score 5 goals.

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* The blue and grey eyes references are due to a lack of surname info, not some romantic yearning on my part. At least not now I realise Rich Cormack's eye's aren't the chocolatey brown that really floats my boat.