What a comfortable change for the Gap Gators in Saturdays fixture. The tense and closely fought battles of recent weeks mainly against sides in the top half of the table was replaced by a walk in the park against the Divison’s bottom team and easy-beats Regents Park to the tune of 7-1.

Coach Gerry McAvoy expected to win the game by enough goals to boost the team’s goal difference and bring it closer to those sides above us in the ladder but he must have been a little worried when it took The Gap 20 minutes to get their first goal.   Great lead-up work by man of the match Dominic Kibbey saw him dribble his way past three defenders in the box and cut the ball back from the goal line to allow Dean Rasposkovski to finish clinically. However, as the first half progressed so too did the attacking quality of the Gators particularly when they minimised the number of touches on the ball and released it quickly enough to put the Regents Park defence on the back foot and not allow them to scrap for the ball. The Gap went into the break 3-0 up and both the second and third goals started from near our back line and with only 3-4 touches allowed Dean Rasposkovski, with a rasping drive, and Dominic Kibbey with his usual uncanny placement, to finish respectively.  

The Gators came out even more committee to playing high tempo two-touch football in the second half and a sublime Dominic Kibbey lob over the keeper and a welcome classy finish by Levi Beel made it 5-0 within a short period of time.  The Gap dominated possession and field position, setting up constant attacking forays for most of the remainder of the game and completed their scoring with a marvellous low drive from Paul Cavallaro that the keeper new nothing about and a well-deserved hat trick from Dominic Kibbey. It could easily have been double figures if not for some desperate goal line clearances, good goalkeeping and some greedy Gap players looking for glory when a pass or cross may have earned better results.

Unfortunately, in such on-sided games concentration  levels drop as the score-line increases and after the Gators defence failed to clear the ball from just outside the penalty box when they appeared to have plenty of time to do so Regents Park were able to score a consolation goal late in the game. Despite this lapse of concentration the result and quality of football played by The Gap was of a high order. Regents Park coaching staff even indicated that we were the best footballing side they had played so far this season despite some bigger losses. We’ll take that positive piece of feedback and build on it for a harder game against Southside Eagles next weekend.