It is fair to say we haven't had many things go for us this season. Injuries and bad officials have plagued us and even when it seemed we'd finally got some luck it wouldn't last for the entire 90 mins.
Well last night was no different and it was to our credit that, for once, we still came away with 3 points.
Norwich battered us for the first 15 minutes. They played the sort of football I think we are meant to be playing and our defence looked fragile at best. Only Scotty Loach looked convincing. I was just beginning to imagine a 3-0 reverse when Bridcutt headered a perfect ball to put Priskin clear of his defender with only the keeper to beat and he duly obliged to give us a surprise lead.
After that Norwich abandoned their fancy football and became a lot more cynical and nasty but were far less effective than they had been. We improved and as always under BR when our passing moves came off they looked very impressive.
In the last couple of minutes of the half de ja vu from last week threatened when we hung on despite a series of Norwich attacks. If we'd been playing a better team it would've been level at the break but luckily Lita was more interested in being petulant than he was in scoring goals.
The officials, who had by and large been okay in the first half, then made two shocking decisions one of which cost us the goal. On two occassions from corners a Watford player was brought down in the box but neither the ref or linesman on the Rous side saw anything at all.
From the second of these Norwich went straight down the other end and scored.
But our response was fantastic. Unlike against Donnie we knew exactly what was required and duly delivered within two minutes. Tommy Smith on the scoresheet yet again.
We hung on particularly in the 3 remaining minutes, although the Rous linesman had time for one more shocker when he didn't give a blatant hand ball against Norwich when Priskin otherwise would've been through on goal again.
Special mentions should go to Bridcutt who is the only bullish aggresive player in the starting 11 despite his tender age. He is the kind of player we'd hate if he was in the opposition. One day he'll be immense probably not at Football League level either.
Priskin was also great, again. Such a shame the man behind me who loathes Priskin wasn't there. In his post match comments it was good to hear BR reveal he has already solved the Priskin conunderum that Aidy never did. He might be tall but its his feet that are the good bit, not his height.
So BR's first win and such a vital one given Norwich's win at the weekend. A nice little gap is appearing between us and the bottom 4. A win on Saturday and we could say we're mid table. However I do worry that when or if we sell Tommy in January this might all have been a false dawn.
