Fielding an unchanged starting XI from last Saturday, this victory saw Woodley win its opening two league game of the season the first time since 2016. The best way to describe the performance was like a roller coaster with a good start to take a two goal lead, a dip in play to allow Deportivo to reduce the arrears before half time, a good performance at the start of the second half to score twice, another dip to allow the opposition to score before ending in a positive manner with the introduction of substitutes.
Harvey Collins, man of the match last time out, played a role in United’s opening two goals. In the ninth minute his free kick from the right hand side into the penalty area was met by the leaping Troy Williams to head the ball to the left of Galicia goalkeeper Luke Bowers into the net.
United thought they had doubled the lead in the twenty fifth minute when captain Keiren Maylen headed Dylan Clark’s corner goalwards, only to see the ball hit the underside of the crossbar and bounce on the goal line before Bowers was able to claw the ball away that fell to Maylen who shot into the side netting.
The second goal came five minutes later when Collins passed to Clark who in turn passed the ball forward to Nico Cammock on the left. The wing back entered the penalty rounding Bowers before shooting from an acute angle that saw the ball beat a defender on the goal line and enter the enter the net.
At this time United eased their intensity of play which allowed the visitors to see more of the ball in the home half of the pitch. Their play was rewarded in the forty second minute when a free kick to the back of Woodley’s penalty area saw Badou Faye out jump Eden Downes and head the ball downwards between a diving Joe Hill and the keeper’s left hand post.
Twice in stoppage time Oscar Kruczkiewicz caused panic in the home defence, first seeing a header scrambled cleared and then a long run from the halfway line into the penalty area before his path was blocked by a number of defenders.
The second half saw Woodley regain the initiative and be rewarded with two goals in three minutes. First saw Cammock made a good run down the left flank and cross low into the penalty area where the on rushing Williams was able to steer the ball into the net from six yards on the hour mark. This was followed by Clark placing his free kick on the edge of the penalty area into Bowers’ left hand corner seeing the ball hit the post and enter the net.
Ilyas Dahdouh reduced the arrears in the seventieth minute when he met a low cross from Kruczkiewicz, who had again run from deep outpacing the United defence and passing pass the advancing Hill.
A series of substitutions followed with Kevin Debarros and Jaden Odama, for his debut, being introduced and both caused the visitors problems as the game became stretched with Galicia looking to score their third. Hill made a double save in the fifth minute of stoppage time before the game ended after a further six minutes with Debarros seeing his free kick go wide of Bowers’ left post.
Hill, Downes, Cammock, Leahy (Gmiterek), Maylen, Debayo, Day (Adam), Collins, Williams (Odama), Ward (Debarros), Clark (Simpson)