The Reserves tale of penalty woe continued, only this time at the other end, as the wait for the first win goes on despite a good performance against the University Reserves.

Awarded deep into the second half, the penalty was calmly slotted past Harty to cancel out fresher Craig Allen's earlier excellent and deserved opener, and complete the scoring at Cochrane Park.

The opening twenty minutes saw the competent if unspectacular University side dominate as Garnett struggled to get going. However once Garnett stepped up the tempo and began to harry and impose themselves on their opponents, they dominated the game for long spells, with some neat and inventive football on occasions.

Pearce and Allen both narrowly missed presentable chances as the first half wore on with Garnett in the ascendancy. The second half saw more of the same, and Garnett's dominance finally told when a long ball down the inside left channel was superbly met by Allen, who sent a looping drive over the Uni keeper's head and into the back of the net.

Garnett probably should have doubled their lead when a fine move saw the ball slid into Hopkins who side footed home only to see the goal ruled out by a questionable offside decision from the home linesman.

At that stage it looked as if it would not matter, such was Garnett's superiority, though the University responded well, without creating any particularly clear-cut chances. However after a sustained spell of pressure down the left, the Uni winger wriggled into the box, and did not take a great deal of convincing to go down following a challenge from the unfortunate Hopkins.

After the equaliser there were skirmishes at both ends, but despite a few worrying moments for both defences, the score remained deadlocked.

Garnett can feel hard done by, but again this was an encouraging performance marked by a much-improved level of composure within the side, and better attempts to play a consistent short passing game, which bodes well for the coming weeks.

Author: Polly

Team: K.Harty, A.Smith, B.Ramsay, M.Rodden, A.Alexander (MOM), M.Laws, G.Hopkins (M.Pollard), C.Pearce, C.Allen 1, N.Heslop, Andy Bell (T.Penn).

NB: The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the
views of the Gosforth Garnett Bohemian Football Club as a whole.