There's a world of difference between excuses and reasons and today there were plenty of reasons for our defeat against table topping Met Police who would not look out of place in the SSML and there was no lack of effort from the entire squad of 15 who spent the best part of 2 hours on the M25.

With 6 potential starters unavailable we traveled through necessity with a squad that included a player no one had seen play and 2 who had not played for a number of weeks.

Met Police had more of the possession and used the width of the pitch well but had failed to create any real chances and despite our relative lack of the ball Callun Gregory had a decent strike and Zedri Hedra could have done better with a header but his lack of match play showed.

After 20 mins we gave away a poor goal when a clearance hit one of our own defenders and rebounded to their forward in front of an empty net. Some 10 mins later the very steady Chris Mason was forced into giving away a free kick and from the delivery Met Police doubled their lead.

Through sheer hard work and determination we got through to half time and in the second period we dropped deeper and shortened our game up when in possession. This at least blunted our opponents and when Connor Church was moved into midfield and the hard working Kieran Goldberg in behind centre forward Zedri Hedra we began to get back into the game with Tom Shaw able to put in a couple of crosses.

Unfortunately with 15 mins to go 3 defenders were taken out by one movement and Met Police sealed the game. Ollie Ruttle who had been introduced after 75 mins bravely converted a pass from Connor Church on 85 mins and Ikeanhi Ejimfor nearly set up a second. Ollie then had a free kick well saved but unfortunately we were unable to make up the deficit.

On the bright side I'm perfectly certain that if even a couple of players had been available the result could well have been different. A number of the absentees are available next week and this will create genuine competition for places.

Team: L Midwinter, Z Crawford, B Johnson, L Barkers-Obua, C Mason (M Bulpit), C Gregory (G Terblanche), J Naylor, K Goldberg (I Ejimfor),
T Shaw (O Ruttle), Z Redha, C Church.

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