Tring battle back to make a point against the league leaders

Following last week’s dismal draw against bottom-off-the-league Thame, the team bounced back with a much more accomplished performance against the league leaders.

Right from the start both sides showed their intent with some fast-paced and skilful play all across the pitch.

There were plenty of goalscoring chances, and Tring were fortunate that their keeper brought his A-game to the match.

After a series of quality exchanges either side of half-time, Amersham’s more clinical finishing had provided them with a seemingly unassailable two-goal lead with only a few minutes remaining.

But Tring kept pressing forward and were rewarded with a penalty flick after a Chris Pedrick short corner rocket was stopped by an Amersham foot on the goalline.

As soon as the flick was converted, Tring exerted further pressure on Amersham, and quickly won another short corner.

This time the goalline save was legitimate, but only resulted in the ball popping up in front of Steve Dutch, who dispatched the rebound into the back of the Amersham net.

The determined 2-2 draw earned Tring an all important point in the promotion race, and with Ramgarhia succumbing to Bicester later in the day, promotion for Tring now looks all but assured.

Elsewhere, the Tring 2s started brightly against Oxford Hawks 6s and were quickly 1-0 up, capitalising on a mistake from the Hawks left-back, with Dillon Hall crossing for Greg Roach to slot home.

Tring stepped their game up further and were all over the opposition, using their width and pace down the flanks to race into a three-goal lead, with Roach grabbing all three.

The second half was a different story, as Hawks pushed up and grabbed a goal back.

A second goal was given – hotly disputed by the Tring defence as the ball didn’t appear to fully cross the line - but Tring restored some calm with a fourth goal from a short corner, with Simon Cobby taking the credit.

Oxford weren’t done though and scored a third.

With five minutes to go, Tring broke quickly from defence, and Roach found the onrushing Luke Sherring-Lucas who calmly lifted the ball over the keeper to score and give Tring a 5-3 win.

Meanwhile, Tring 3s came up against a much older and more experienced Wycombe side on Saturday.

Tring fielded eight players under the age of 17, compared with a Wycombe side comprising almost entirely of adults.

Tring started brightly but the experience of the Wycombe side began to tell and at half-time the score was 2-0.

Tring played with a lot of effort in the second half and did threaten the Wycombe goal on several occasions.

The final score was 5-1 to Wycombe but it didn’t feel like a big defeat as Tring were always in the game. Harry Evans was very accomplished in goal and Alex Walters did a fine job as a makeshift defender.

Meanwhile, the ladies’ 1s continued their winning streak with a well deserved 3-1 victory over rivals Hemel & Berkhamstead Ladies 1s this weekend.

They continued to dominate like so many of the games this season, but are now finding the back of the net more frequently.

Young Lizzie Jack continues to improve and demonstrated it this week with a superb individual goal. Jenny Wrench and Emily Hogan were also on the scoresheet.