Our U12 Boys faced HMH Eagles away and played out an entertaining match despite the poor weather. Skinner secured MoM after scoring an excellent goal in a 1-1 draw. The boys round of the season away to APB Raiders next Sunday.
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Our U13 Boys have had a real go this season and been genuine title contenders as a result. They faced a really tough task away to Northwood today in the League, a form side who are also looking at County Trophy success. Despite a great effort, the boys were unable to secure the points needed to surge to the top. However, they now have two more league games to push for the highest position they can get and, hopefully, a promotion place!
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Our U14 Boys faced Omonia White in the League away, their penultimate fixture of the season. A physically advanced team, a quarter of the opposition side today would not have looked out of place in a men's team. Either very tall, powerful or lightning fast; sometimes all three. To combat this, the Wood needed to tackle hard and compete throughout with no let up possible, limit individual mistakes and take our own chances when they came. At the end of the whistle, most of these targets had been realised with others requiring some further work.
Captain Crucefix started fast down the right hand side, leading to an early series of corners. Thereafter, Omonia grew into the game and pressured the Wood all over the pitch. A dubious penalty was awarded but, was kept out by a tremendous Marshall save, only for the Wood to concede such a soft opening goal shortly afterwards, when the Omonia forward, a distant 3rd favourite to reach the ball first, somehow did to score.
MoM Fan, enjoying a first class performance, drew the Wood level with a delightful curled pass into the top corner from distance; a finish of the higest quality with his 'weaker' foot. Once again though, the boys conceded another frustratingly easy goal with routine clearances missed from a mishit pass that found it's way to the home striker, hardly believing his luck as he tapped home.
However, the response from the boys was again superb as they went blow for blow with their opponents, not giving up even when the ref refused to stop the game for a serious injury to the warrior like Ifeacho after what looked like a foul, Omonia running down the pitch to score in the confusion. Undeterred, the impressive Pop combined beautifully with Fan to rip through the Omonia defence before Fan curled in another sublime finish, this time with his right foot.
Both centre halfs - Reed and Hones - were enjoying really combative matches, revelling in the physical challenge, as was Hobbs, moving from defence to midfield to reinforce strongly there. Manning put in a good shift, Montgomery covered well, Makamian's flying header denied Omonia another goal while McGuinness and Song, returning to the side, tried hard to re-adjust. With the match drawing to a close, Ifeacho pushed aside the pain to plant a bomb of a tackle on the Omonia centre half. Silva seized the loose ball to waltz through and level with a fine finish; this time, however, the home ref saw a foul and disallowed what appeared a legitimate equalizer.
There you are and the man in the middle makes the calls and with young men crashing around as they did today, it's not an easy task. The summary is that the team did give its all, it did take its chances and it did make us all very proud indeed; the physical gap we often fight against will close every week until it's no longer relevant. Wipe out those unforced errors and the momentum they give to our opponents and suck from us, and the points will be ours every time going forward. Certainly a step forward today.