It had been a glorious weekend of sport. Dundee FC smashed Greenock Morton 2:1 in the most competitive league in Europe and the mighty Springboks pissed all over England in the RWC Final. All that was needed to make a beautiful hat trick was for us to pump Hotshots like we have been pumping everyone else this season. 

Unfortunately, It wasn’t to be! Hotshots came into the game ready to frustrate us and were very up for it, and the Raiders never really got going. Although Raiders dominated we were not as clinical as we have been and our intensity levels were definitely diminished. 1:1 was probably a fair result (despite hotshots only having 1 shot on goal in the last minute!)
Raiders started on the front foot and should have been ahead in the first 5 minutes when a sumptuous through ball from Mike was met by Hoggy who narrowly missed with a lob. After that, Foxy (determined to silent his old team) almost got his first competitive goal for Raiders but his sexy freekick came back off the crossbar. Several more half chances from the front 3 came and went and it kind of looked like it was going to be one of those days….
Half time came and went, and despite Coach Col trying to get us more up for it, Raiders were still struggling to increase their intensity levels and were being more than matched by the Hotshots. Our defence was looking strong again, mopping up every half-chance Hotshots had, and Sipho made an excellent tackle after tracking back to keep the scores level. 
Then, another big chance for the raiders. A long ball over the top from captain Clem caught the keeper napping and Hoggy sprinted through to get there first. He did, but the keeper must have been confused about his big bald heed and the ball, as Hoggy received a solid boot to his dome! No red card either! Surprise surprise. Up steps Mike. Nae bother. 1 – 0. No wait, some eejit (shall remain nameless after a MOTM performance) ran into the box so penalty had to be retaken. This time Mike smashes it like Hendre Pollard in the RWC Final. Yikes! One to forget!
Luckily the tireless Emma (deservedly MOTM, despite the penalty incident….wanker), managed to keep his composure after a nice knockdown from Clem to make it 1-0 shortly after. It looked like the raiders had dug deep enough to get the 3 points, but unfortunately, a last-minute boot up the park from the Hotshots keeper managed to bounce through our defence, who had been caught napping a bit for the first time this season, and some lanky loser got on the end of it to draw the Hotshots level. 
This was our first little blip in the league and was a probably the kick up arse we need to realise every week will not be easy. We will need to dig deep to make it a treble of league trophies. On to Fighting Cocks next week to make sure we make a statement!
Moan the raiders (and Springboks!)