Prestwich’s hugely impressive 2nd half of the season culminated in a 5th straight win against a Rossendale side unrecognisable from the previous week’s meeting. It was a terrific performance by the Prestwich boys as Rossendale had clearly strengthened their squad considerably in a successful effort to retain premier division status.
The strong winds and driving rain made for horrendous playing conditions and with the wind direction slightly favouring the hosts they dominated the first half. Prestwich had to be very disciplined and organised as a defensive unit and as a team they did exactly that.
With Sean Haslam largely ploughing a lone furrow up front they had to soak up the pressure and break as and when the opportunity arose whilst regrouping solidly on transition.
While Rossendale were creating chances they were hampered by too much wind causing passes to be over hit and run on to keeper Mike Hudson or out of play, although Hudson (pictured) was called upon to make two fantastic back to back saves one being a brilliant athletic tip of a wind assisted shot on to the post.
Prestwich did create chances themselves on occasion, with the likes of Mike Neary, Matty Brennan and Tito Miguel always looking to burst forward in support of Haslam, whilst Steve Lorenzini was doing an admiral job of shielding the back four and feeding people in. The home pressure intensified as the half wore on but Prestwich’s back line of Dillian White, Baz Campbell, Richard Steadman and James Barlow were throwing themselves at everything on in and around the box and Hudson performing immaculately in goal.
Prestwich enjoyed much more possession in first period of the second half with Neary especially making regular inroads down the right putting a string of tempting balls across the box but with nobody quite managing to get on the end of them. Brennan and Haslam came close but the stalemate continued.
As the half wore on it was clear the game was a single goal for either side would more than likely clinch it. This was a much stronger Rossendale side then the one that struggled so much for three quarters of the season and they came back strongly in the latter stages, again piling the pressure on the visitors, Steadman made one heroic block throwing himself in front of a thunderbolt of a shot from close range which typified the resolve shown by the whole team on the day.
With minutes remaining Neary made yet another typical surge down the right beating a couple of players and using his strength to hold of a third before pulling back a great ball across the six yard box, it just evaded Haslam but landed at the feet of Rafal Straszewski who’d been struggling in the latter stages with an injury but had to stay on as it was a bare eleven for Prestwich, Straszewski kept his composure superbly to take a touch balance himself and smash a daisy cutter under the keeper and give Prestwich the points despite a desperate attempt by the hosts to claw it back in the dying minutes.
The win saw Prestwich achieve a comfortable mid table finish, an incredible achievement by the whole squad considering they started the season with 1 point from the first nine games and relegation looked nailed on.
