By Alex Finnis
James Offord bagged himself a hat-trick as James thrashed a wasteful Wentworth 6-1 after going into half time on level terms.
James’ first goal came early after a great ball from Richard Baxter found Josh Brownlow on the left, whose shot was too powerful for Wentworth goalkeeper Matt Taylor to hold, leaving Offord to latch upon the rebound and grab his college a simple opener.
Despite the early goal, however, chances were few and far between in the first half; the blustery conditions and swamp-like pitch being largely to blame. The defences dominated, with James’ three central defenders, Nick St. George in particular, keeping any potential Wentworth threat at bay.
Offord had a couple of half-chances after being put through on goal, only to be thwarted by an excellent last-ditch challenge from Alex Jones and then by the Wentworth goalkeeper, but it was the postgraduate college who were to score the only other goal of the half. A dangerous ball was whipped into the James penalty area and was met by the head of the impressive Samik Datta. Toby Owen did excellently to pull off an acrobatic stop at full reach, but couldn’t prevent Dom Green from seizing upon the rebound to level the scores.
After a very even first half, the game looked a tough one to call, with Wentworth shading the possession and looking a good match for their opponents. They started the second half well too, with Datta, who was unlucky to be on the losing side after an excellent display, stabbing just wide after a long throw and some good, flowing moves coming down both flanks, but it was James who were to take the lead. Richard Baxter put in an excellent cross from the left hand side, allowing James Offord to steal in front of Taylor and poke the ball into the bottom corner for a goal he said was “important, as we were being put under a lot of pressure at the time”.
An eruption of drama followed the goal with Wentworth coming agonisingly close to leveling once more. First, a long range strike from Datta was deflected just wide, before Dom Green’s header was blocked from the resulting corner, and a huge shout for a penalty was ignored by the ref after an alleged handball in the area. Cruelly, James then went on to score a third; Josh Brownlow coolly dribbling the ball over the line after Taylor tipped a powerful strike from Kreienbaum against the bar. The fourth followed shortly after; Offord rounding off his hat-trick with a long-range strike which left the keeper helpless. The same player was then denied a fourth goal of his own as his ambitious lob from 25 yards held up in the wind, allowing Matt Taylor to rush back and stop the ball on the goal-line.
James begun to run away with the game, tearing apart a dispirited Wentworth side and creating several more opportunities. Offord hit the bar and Brownlow had a shot cleared off the line before the excellent Richard Baxter slammed home his side’s fifth from range after the opposition defence failed to close him down. The relentless Samik Data continued to attack tirelessly down the left, beating several James defenders on his many mazy runs, but his efforts couldn’t prevent James’s Josh Brownlow from rounding off the scoring with a brilliant solo effort; squirming through the Wentworth defence before firing into the netless goal to make it 6-1.
James captain Simon Mole was delighted with his side’s performance; “We got the right balance today”, he said, “we matched good football with goals”. That they certainly did; a thoroughly impressive display in extremely tricky and unpleasant conditions.