Twin Oaks FC U13's V Maidenbower Utd
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20th Sep 2008 CLICK TO SPONSOR |
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Twin Oaks FC U13's 2
v
Maidenbower Utd 1
Oriel High School
Today was a day when the artists of Twin Oaks showed their metal and worked for the good of the whole.
Today on a large pitch which as we know does not favour our style of play, we dug deep, kept possession, kept running and most importantly kept winning. Being a winning team shows in the confidence of every player on the pitch. You all ran today that much harder and that much faster as you all had the team ethic.
We expect to see the silky skills and pace of Liam and even Lewis, we do not always see the grit and determination that they showed throughout today’s match. Liam ran at the opposition defence from start to finish of the match taking pressure away from our defence when they needed rest bite most. Once or twice he got to the other end of the pitch and just ran out of sufficient energy to slam the ball home. I think on a smaller pitch he’ll score goals galore.
Lewis played a canny game working triangles with Ryan, Tom and Ellias, carried the ball forward when openings allowed and slid some excellent through balls to Tom and Ellias.
The initial back four from left to right was Ryan, Connor, Sam and Charlie. I must thank Sam for his first half contribution who together with Connor did not allow the clever early interplay to upset them and were resolute. Charlie and Ryan both defended well and supported the midfield players in front. Charlie had his best game yet for us. At various times Jerome and Sam R played in defence and maintained the solid backline.
The midfield of Josh, Ellias, Jerome and Liam had although the energy you could hope for and on many occasions made up the numbers in attack.
Just over midway through the first half George replaced Jerome and held the centre ground making some super tackles and passes.
A combination of Tom, Sam and Lewis manned our frontline at various points and all worked as hard as we hoped they would.
Matt, what happened to your goal kicking today! Other than that another assured performance in handling terms with one super reflex save at the end of the first half as Maidenbower broke through. His footwork has also improved when coming out of the area as shown in training last week!!!
The opening 10 minutes were the only period during which we did not create and maybe they had the upper hand. But from then on we held the ball well moved the ball cleverly and defended stoutly.
Although the first goal had an element of luck as Tom’s cross/shot took a heavy deflection past the Maidenbower goalkeeper, it was no more than we deserved.
As time progressed we held the balance of play and moved the ball from defence, to midfield, to attack swiftly, often cutting through their defence effortlessly, but due to a combination of good goalkeeping and possibly our only shortfall of the day being a low and hard shot we did not capitalize.
At the end of the first period Tom scored a goal which was I believe mistakenly given as offside although the ball was pulled back to him in our opinion.
In the second half we played with creativity and with Maidenbower having a numeric advantage may I say even better than we did in the first once again making numerous openings down both flanks and Tom, Liam and Ellias having numerous chances before a slide rule pass came through to Tom who in turn slid the ball past the Maidenbower keeper.
2-0 gave us a little daylight which was eventually needed as finally a ball split our defence and Maidenbowers top scorer brought the score back with only a few minutes remaining.
Although this left the end a little nervy we continued not to let the opposition have the ball and got our just desserts!
Hopefully we can continue with the winning start against Billingshurst Youth in the League Cup at home this next Saturday
Allez Les Blues!!!!
Goalscorers -
Tom
Own Goal
Man of the Match -