Youth Reports 2016-17
29 January 2017
Whetstone Wanders Jaguars 1 Northwood Reds Reds Under 13s 2
A last gasp winner saw Northwood Reds U13 win a tight game at Whetstone in the Spring Trophy group stages. With the late withdrawal of Lewis Ryan with a high temperature and ear infection, Rayyan with shoulder pains (we all hope both boys recover soon),and the unavailability of Arun and Ben it was good to have both Sam and Daniel Davey available for their debuts for Northwood, meaning we would have 12 players today.
Our 2 debut boys had quite fantastic games with Daniel Davey who has signed as a second goalkeeper had a quite superb debut, saving on numerous occasions as well as commanding his area well receiving a well-deserved player of the match award. Our other debutant Sam also had a great game in the centre of the midfield three, playing breaking up play and putting in some great passes I’m sure that he will be a great addition to the team.
The game started on one of the smallest 11 a side pitches we have played on this season so the thought that we could play our usual expansive game was soon dashed. The pitch was also quite muddy in the middle, making passing and control of the ball very difficult and with no space it was always going to be a tight game against another tall physical team. The first exchanges were quite even with both teams going close but the boys couldn’t seem to get the ball out of the middle of the pitch making the pitch cut up even more and making it not the best spectacle to watch. However, one of our best moves of the half saw Felipe, find Lewis Reid who beat his defender with pace down the left he then delivered a great cross for Ashley to tap in at the far post 0-1 the Woods. Barely 2 minutes later from our own free-kick deep in our own half saw the boys lose concentration, leaving Whetstone players unmarked and they punished us straight away to make it 1-1. The game again went from end to end with the boys having some good chances on the Whetstone goal and Daniel the defence doing really well to keep out the Whetstone efforts as well. At half-time we very much told the boys that we could not lose concentration or discipline and that we needed to tighten up a bit on the passes that Whetstone were putting in behind our back four.
Whetstone did start the second half well and went close on a few occasions but again the boys defended well as a team, with some great blocks and last gasp tackles which kept Whetstone out. The boys did make some chances of their own with Ashley going close as well as Lewis Reid, Felipe and Zaki. The latter stages of the game Whetstone were a bit in the ascendancy throwing everything at us but with Daniel in great form in goal and the rest of the team were defending like demons we kept them out. From one of our counter attacks with only two minutes left on the clock the ball fell to Felipe in a very crowded penalty area, and he managed to squeeze a shot into the corner to put the boys 1-2 up. Thankfully the boys saw out the last minutes and a half and came away with a great victory.
Player of the match: Daniel Davey
Line up Daniel Davey, Ale, George, Daniel Terry Oliver, Felipe Sam, Zaki, Declan, Lewis Reid, Ashley, Dan Jago
Well done to all the boys!
Dave Blincko
