| Match Report |
Due to some late illnesses, a bare 7 made the journey to our first league match of the season at West Wratting and we were met by a slope that was clearly going to have an effect on the game. Jospeh made his debute (playing in goal) and Ollie was making his first appearance for the Whites. Albie and Alfie were in defence for the first half, with Alex (captain and centre), Rhys (left) and Ollie (right) and Rhys up front. Kicking up hill we defended manfully as a unit. The whole team put excellent pressure on the ball to keep good chances to a minumum and, when WW were able to get their shoots away, Joseph was on hand. We played some lovelly football and were not without an attacking threat, with only good goalkeeping at the other end stopping Rhys from scoring on more than a few occassions, especially after some great link up play with Alex and Flynn. At the turn we were one goal behind, but were confident we would be able to turn that around. A reshuffle at the break saw Rhys and Ollie move to defence, Alfie to right midfield and Albie to striker. Regretably, from our kick off we gave the ball away sloppily and within 15 seconds of the restart we were a further goal behind. From then on the game was very even. We created some good chances, but our only reward was a well worked goal that saw Albie put through and working a good opening before drilling the ball through the WW goalkeeper and into the net. WW weren't without a threat though and only some excellent defensive work from Ollie, Rhys and Joseph kept them at bay. Despite our best endevours the decifit was slightly extended. Albie swapped with Flynn for the latter part of the final half to see if we could peg them back, but depsite further good chances we weren't able to add to our tally. Nevermind, the performance is always more inportant that the result and everyone played fantastically well. The players decided that the opposition goalkeeper was their best goalkeeper, which speaks volume. I awarded our player of the match to Rhys, but Alex and Joseph ran him very close. Any of them could have been given the award though and it bodes well for the season. :)
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