To be fair the Millers started bright and camped in the Lincoln box for the opening few minutes but it soon deteriorated. Lincoln were playing an organized midfield 5 who knew their job roles perfectly. Against the Millers midfield 4 they slowly started to take over and it was against the run of play that IMFC took the lead.
An IMFC cross was cleared with ease by the Lincoln defence but the ball dropped kindly to Gaz out on the wing. He turned on the afterburners and went past the Lincoln wing backs exposing the space in behind that a 352 sometimes leaves. A great cross came to JV near the back post and he smashing a stunning volley hard into the corner of the net. Surely that would settle the Millers down and they would go onto comfortable victory?
It just didn’t happen. Lincoln was gradually becoming more dominant going forward with the extra man in midfield causing IMFC all sorts of problems. This is one of the reasons IMFC toy with the idea of playing 352 because with the right personnel and an organized unit it becomes horrendous for the opposition to play against.
Half time came and despite leading there were a few concerned words from the management team trying to get the players going. There could be no excuses of hangovers, it was simply underestimating the opponent and not being able to react.
The second half saw IMFC fare no better albeit they had a couple of chances to secure the game. Some good wing play by JV pulled the ball back for Jebu on the edge of the box but the defender put in a good block. Jebu also had a header cleared off the line by a defender on the near post which epitomized Lincoln’s organization throughout the game.
In general, it was a scrappy game but Lincoln were on top in midfield. The management team changed the formation to 451 in an attempt to block up midfield but when JV got injured and had to come off people were unorganized and looking shabby. To be fair the move to 451 did work somewhat in that it ebbed the flow of Lincolns control in midfield but it meant IMFC were never going to really cause much more concern to the Lincoln backline. No matter how good Steve Burns is as a forward he was struggling against 3 capable big strong defenders on his own.
Lincoln got the goal they deserved with no more than 5 or so minutes left to play. A long ball up field was headed on well by the striker and the pacey Lincoln striker pushed the ball away from Denti. With the striker heading out wide there appeared to be little danger but the IMFC defender put in a rash challenge inside the corner of the penalty box and the referee had no choice but to point to the spot.
The Lincoln striker calmly slotted home and at this point just about every IMFC player really had doubts as to whether they would be progressing much further in the tournament.
However, extra time came and went, with the 5th midfielder in for IMFC at least it did pretty much kill the game for both sides. It wasn’t pretty though and considering we can’t blame a hangover we need to give a lot of credit to Lincoln for the way they played.
So into penalties it went, IMFC got knocked out last year on pens by Swindon in the last 16 but since then they have done pretty well. Against Sheff U at LuG and Scunny in a friendly only 1 in 10 pens have been missed so the regular takers entered the arena and all 5 were confident.
Rotherham went first and scored and then Lincoln also scored. Lincoln missed their 4th penalty after IMFC had made no mistake with theirs. At 4-3 in penalties it came down to Andy Parker to slot home the winning penalty. To be honest no one in the team could have wished for a better person to be taking a penalty to win a match. Andy is calmness personified and very rarely misses. He made no mistake with a superb penalty into the roof of the net to send the Millers contingent wild.
It had been a very lucky escape, a complete kick up the backside that no one can be underestimated at Worldnet. At the end of the tournament we all agreed that Lincoln was the one team all tournament that caused us the most problems. They certainly were not the most talented but for me they breached our defence more times than the extremely quality side of QPR did later in the tournament. At the start of the tournament this is one thing we would never have predicted.
The management team took stock of the situation given the lucky break against Lincoln. Going into the Darlington last 16 match (who beat Gillingham) changes were to be made to both steady the ship and give more pressure further up the pitch. It was decided that the non stop, full of energy Jammer would move up front and act as a first line of midfield. Jebu would drop back into right back where he has a wealth of experience against high quality opposition. This move would prove a masterstroke throughout the tournament as Jammer defied physical capabilities with his running and the defensive organisation improved dramatically.
News filtered through of some shock results. Both Millwall teams got knocked out at the first stage with the most surprising being Millwall A losing to Coventry. Considering IMFC tonked the Sky Blue Army 4-1 relatively easily the day before this was a massive shock. A few other big names such as Bury A fell away with their inexperience in the tournament probably just rearing its head in day 2 of the football.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE
