| Score:
Banstead Rangers U8B 0 - Bookham Colts U8B 2
Match report:
The third win in as many matches this could put us back in third depending
on how Oxshott Royals fair against Stoneleigh.
First half
We lost the toss and started to play at the lower end of a moderately
sloping pitch, giving the home team a slight down hill advantage. Several
of the Rangers' players showed good skill and the home team started strongly
forcing the ball through the middle threatening our goal. But Ben and
Tom, in a spectacular return to form, managed to intercept the ball bring
it out on either wing leaving Sam to settle in to his first full game
in goal. Because Josh and Danny stuck to their wing positions Tom, Ben
and Jake were able to pass the ball to the wings where Josh and Danny
made consistent threatening runs up either 'channel' (the sides of the
pitch). Both winger showed good skill dribbling the ball and beating players,
Josh made several good attempts to pass defenders by knocking the ball
past and then running on to it leaving the defender standing. Meanwhile
Danny made several good crosses in to Reilly and Josh. There was some
excellent short passing 'link play' between Tom, Danny, Jake and Reilly
but our best moment came towards the end of the half when Josh got the
ball in space on the left, striking and only being denied a goal by a
slight deflection off the goalie's legs.
Second Half
Josh and Danny came off after two very good performances for the team
and were replaced by Craig and Charlie, meanwhile Sam made the right decision
to stay in goal and maintain his clean sheet (not letting in any goals)
from the first half. This half we had the advantage of the slope which
helped to tip the balance in favour of the Colts. Another major factor
was Jake's excellent second half performance, not only did he tackle well,
as usual, but he thought about his long passing to the wing and up field
to Reilly, showing how he was thinking ahead about the game and about
the position of his team mates. Also Reilly who had been a bit quite in
the first half after two weeks off ill found his rhythm to good effect.
With the team firing on all cylinders (working really well as a team)
it was only a matter of time before the break through came, but it wasn't
in open play it was from a corner kick by Ben which kept low and cunningly
beat the Banstead defender finally finding Charlie who skillfully tucked
it away for our first. Going a goal down fired up the Rangers but they
rarely threatened our goal, except on a couple of occasions when we failed
to clear the ball up field as effectively as usual. Our second was scored
by Reilly who was put through on goal by Charlie, gratefully accepting
the opportunity Reilly skillfully controlled the ball and ran it into
the net for number two! Kick off almost resulted in number three with
a great solo run by Reilly, turned away by the goalie at the last moment.
The other highlights of the half were: a high kick from Jake that fell
right in front of goal and which Craig almost coverted and an opportunity
for Ben as the ball came free of a goal mouth scramble. Later analysis
showed that Ben, trying to use the outside of his right foot in favour
of his normally relyable left, slightly miss kicked the ball knocking
it just wide. The fianl score: 2-0 to the Colts!
Managers comment:
An excellent performance from all players and a good result. We held our
positions, we used good long and short passes to move the ball about and
we started to run into spaces!
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