Leiston Give K’s Opening Day Blues
The first day of the football season works like this: you take your limited knowledge about a series of individuals, add it to the first 90 competitive minutes you see and draw huge, sweeping, premature conclusions. With such a small sample size, it's not a perfect method.
Richard Jolly is a goalscorer. He has been one of the best strikers in the Ryman over the last few seasons. He's scored plenty against Ks, is a trustworthy finisher and for 90 minutes against Leiston his running and movement caused problem's for the hosts backline as Kingstonian piled on the pressure. With 20 minutes to go, he perfectly exploited the offside trap and had acres of time and space as he bore down on goal. Richard Jolly is a striker, brought to Ks for exactly this occasion, 2-1 down, through on goal... Richard Jolly's attempt to slide it under the onrushing Alex Rossis was blocked by the keeper. Richard Jolly, on Satuday, was not a goal scorer.
The M25 is a motorway, one that is often stop-start and on a glorious Saturday in August, one of the places on Earth you'd least like to be. On this day, it provided a proved particularly stubborn, turning Ks' journey into a five hour one, and delaying kickoff. The M25 might be a motorway, but it might also be some kind of alien, sent back from the future to prevent anyone getting anywhere on time.
Pico Gomez is a striker. Pico Gomez tackles goalies. Against Leiston he once again combined these two key skills, putting so much pressure on Rossis that the ball was presented to him with an open net and a tight angle. Pico Gomez is a striker and Ks went 1-0 up. Pico is also a penalty taker. With time running out, he went down under a heavy challenge in the area, all eyes shifted to the referee. On Saturday, Pico Gomez was not a penalty taker.
George Wells is Kingstonian's new, highly rated, left back. Dynamic going forwards, but at 19, George Wells is still a little bit raw. George Wells made two key mistakes on Saturday. Firstly, he gave away possession and never fully recovered, allowing Darren Mills inside him to slide under Elvijs Putnins and equalise just before after. Six minutes after the interval, he was caught out of possession, drifting too centrally. Leiston's Christy Finch (who's got a bloody good rep) took full advantage, firing low into the far corner from 20 yards. George Wells is a young left back.
Tommy Williams is Kingstonian's manager. Tommy Williams has a talented squad who showed glimpses of being a good team on Saturday and probably did enough to merit a point. We didn't learn loads about Tommy on Saturday, but we will over the next nine months, which seems a much fairer sample size.
