Sunday 14th March 2010 - Broad Town Colts (A)

Whoever said football was a game of two halves? It's quite clearly four "halves"!

So four 15 minutes quarters, and just 7 players. One of which (to put it delicately) had a bad tummy yesterday, and a cold. I think another wasn't feeling 100% either. So we were always likely to struggle. But 12-2. Not good enough! What was that? 12-2 to us? Are you sure?

There was some debate about the score. Some think 11, some 12. I think the following scored: Harry (6), Cameron (3), Matt B (1), Ryan (1). There was apparently an own goal in there too.

No match report I'm afraid, but I'd like to write a few lines on each player.

MJ. Tricky game for the 'keeper and defenders, and the action was mainly up the other end. This makes it tricky to remain focuses. A superb reflex save at the end of the first quarter. This enabled us to go in 1-0 up. Had that gone in, the whole match could have been different.

Archie. Really pleased with Archie in defence. No nonsense play from Archie again. Quick to the ball, and always cleared it well. Fitting in really well in to his new position.

Cade. Was doubtful to start today, and if he'd have pulled out, we may have had to cancel with just 6 players left. Happy to kick with either foot, and kept his position well.

Matt B. Only the second match for Matt, but looked very comfortable on the ball. Was standing his own in tackles against kids much larger than him. A well taken goal too. Looked exhausted at the end after all the running.

Ryan. Strong in the tackle again. Helped the forwards, but was always there to help with the defending too. Got a well deserved goal. Offered to go in goat at the end to give MJ a run out.

Cameron. Was slightly under the weather, though you'd not have known. Always tracking back to in the ball back. Taking on and beating players. Always comfortable in using his left foot. Three well deserved goals again today.

Harry. Best game he's had in my opinion (and that's saying something!). Is getting very strong now, and using that to his advantage. Never gave the defence any time on the ball, and his first two were almost identical, where he chased the ball down, beat the defender, and was through on goal. And tod you spot the Cruyff turn on the left wing? Superb stuff.

We have a really good match now of strength and skill. We had a great session Tuesday where we worked on both areas. We were finding opponents starting to push us about n the pitch. Whilst we don't want our players to start pushing, they've been told that they can use their bodies to win the ball now, and they did just that today.

Another reason for the performance was likely to be the fact that the lads had more time to get in to the match. Whilst we have tried to get all players involved in a match, that has meant less time on the pitch to get in to the swing of it. Something for Ralph and I to look at. We may well go with 8 per match (for example), and rotate the matches.

Really pleased with the performance today. A bit of a change from our 6-1 defeat in the friendly at the start of the season.

Last modified on Monday 22nd June 2015 at 23:39