CD THADER – 2 CF GANDIA – 2
BY STEVE HIBBERD
CD Thader Rojales entered this last home game of the season, comfortably placed in mid table, whereas opponents Gandia, had already been relegated some weeks ago. Played on a glorious sun soaked Sunday morning, probably the lowest gate of the season had assembled inside Moi Gomez Stadium.
Manager Raul Mora, elected to make a number of changes from the previous weeks narrow victory at Paterna. With regular Thader captain Lloyd out injured, and deputy Juan on the bench, the armband was given to the bearded midfielder Fran.
The hosts started the match brightly, with the diminutive David showing his worth, when his powerful shot from the edge of the box just missed the target. In fact, it was David who opened the scoring on 14 minutes, courtesy of a fine individual mazy run, having received a glorious assist from fellow striker Tremino.
Gandia keeper Aspas pulled off 2 great saves from firstly a Sergio header, then on 29 mins, he denied Adam what looked like a certain goal. Up till now, Chema had been able to watch on, as his Thader team mates completely dominated play, but on 33 mins, he needed to be alert to prevent Facundo from levelling the scores.
Straight up the other end, Berni squandered a glorious chance to double the hosts advantage, when with only the keeper to beat, his comical effort resulted in a throw in to the visitors. Gandia did eventually square proceedings on 40 mins, when following a long ball out of defence, Keita saw Chema way out of his goal, before perfectly chipping the ball into an empty net.
Livewire David was at it again on 52 mins, but once again, Aspas pulled off a wordly save to deny him a goal. Six mins later, it was Javi´s turn to test Gandia´s keeper credentials, then on the hour mark, Jordi brought the best out of Aspas.
Completely against the run of play on 65 mins, Niang shot through a sea of players, with the ball somehow ending up in the back of the net.
What happened next was farcical to say the least. David was quite blatently fouled inside the box on 69 mins, resulting in a penalty, which Fran nonchalantly dispatched. Gandia players and officials were quite rightly incensed that a Thader player had encroached in the box, but having consulted his nearside assistant, ref Alejandro Murphy allowed the goal to stand. Inexplicably, he then ran to his far side assistant, before ordering the kick to be retaken.
Fran placed his kick the same side as before, but although Aspas got a firm hand to it, he could not prevent it crossing the line. In all fairness, there should have been 2 more penalties awarded, but ref Murphy chose to ignore strong appeals. Tremino was fouled not once, but twice, inside Gandia´s penalty area, before Watt was blatently pushed in the back when in Thader´s box.
All in all, a 2-2 draw was probably a fair reflexion on the match, which mirrored the scoreline when the 2 teams last met at Gandia just before Xmas last year. On Saturday 10 May, ko 6pm, Thader make the journey to play high flying Novelda, for the final game of the Community League season.
