By Roger Baxter
On a weekend of controversy in college football, Derwent overcame a harrowing injury to their captain to post a well-deserved 3-0 victory over Wentworth.
From the beginning of the game, the younger side looked the sharper, and while Wentworth did manage to get into the game a little more as it progressed, the pressure that Derwent were putting them under while in possession was simply too much for the postgrads to handle.
This was made evident when Derwent won a free-kick on the left side of the Wentworth half. Matt Hallam launched a looping ball into the box, and goalkeeper Matt Brennan, under considerable pressure from the Derwent attack, let the ball slip through his hands and over the line. The Wentworth defence cried foul to a man, but referee Dan Horsfall, a postgrad himself, waved away their protests, and the goal stood.
If there was a controversial air to Derwent’s opener, there was nothing of that nature about their second. The industrious Jacob Tapper won the ball on the left, and the ball broke to in-form David Kirk. On the volley, from fully 25 yards out, Kirk watched the ball over his shoulder and let fly with an unsaveable shot into the top-right-hand corner.
It was at this point that the game saw an ugly incident. Hallam, rushing back from an attempted attack, went to head a low ball, and in doing so was struck on the head. When he finally was able to get up, his face was streaming with blood and he had suffered a suspected broken nose.
The Derwent captain immediately took himself off, and play resumed with Wentworth a man to the good. The postgrads then enjoyed their best passage of play of the game, forcing Seb Treasure to make an acrobatic save following a corner. This, however, was not to last. Derwent recovered their composure and ended the half looking much the better side.
Their control continued after the break. Wave after wave of fluent attacking was the dominant feature of the half, with Dan Atherton in particular looking sublime going forward. Wentworth eventually cracked. Under pressure from David Kirk, Brennan shanked an attempted clearance that bobbled agonisingly back into his own net.
The rest of the game saw Derwent content to sit back and defend their lead, which they did with relative ease to the final whistle; Wentworth seemed to miss the pace of Samik Datta, unavailable for this term, when going forward. Both Hallam, who stayed despite his injury, and Wentworth manager Mark Eslic stated their confidence going into the rest of the season; Derwent, in particular, look to be strong contenders for a place at the top.