AVON YOUTH LEAGUE U’16 KO CUP RD 4

SUN 6 JAN 08

FRY CLUB COLTS        1

OLDLAND ABBOTS      5

 

Another home cup tie, albeit against the top team in the area, and possibly the South West. A good time to play them though, immediately after a long holiday break.

Surprisingly for much of the first half, we more than match Oldland in every department. Their quality did show at times, creating chance after chance, but not really close enough to trouble Craig Francis in goal. Both Scott Gregory and Jame Hurrell Smith were playing well enough in defence to cope with the pressure, equally well supported by their 2 full backs Michael Payne and Ben Keen. Our 3 man central midfield trio of Oli Randall, Mo Bouaziz and Danny McCarthy were at times well in control, but we needed more quality in our forward movement, something which we struggled with through the game. It was, as seems to be happening for much of our of season so far, a piece of bad luck which brought about the opening goal by Oldland. A straight forward ball through our defence was well covered by James Hurrell Smith but his attempted clearance was unlucky enough to bounce of the strikers body into his path and from 12 yards out he put Oldland 1-0 up. With Lewis Watt running a striking role up front, we needed to hit back quickly, but despite the best efforts of the 2 wide men supporting him, Kyle Curtis and Scott Palma, we went into half time down by just the 1 unlucky goal.

Our passing ability was a little below par, which needed to improve in the second half if we were going to get anything out of this game. Despite a positive start to the half, we were to concede a very harsh penalty which put us 2 down almost immediately. A lack of concentration from a corner was to see a further goal conceded, despite Kyles best efforts on the post to keep the ball out and yet another disputed penalty was to see the game put beyond any reach, thanks to some generous decisions. In between all of this, with the rotation of our 15 man squad used to its fullest effect, we were to get one piece of luck as a good move through the centre of the pitch saw the ball pushed wide and back into the box for Nathan Dawson to push the ball over the line and be one of only 2 teams to score against Oldland this season. Oli Randall and Charlie Frampton did their best to try and construct a further opportunity but we were to suffer from some further bad luck. From a clearance and some brilliant play from Oldlands Zak Zabel who sent the ball back over Craigs head into the roof of the net for his hat trick and Oldlands 5^th goal of the game.

The scoreline flattered Oldland as they really didn’t play very well. That said, we could and should have also played better and quite possibly the upset of the season could have happened. It wasn’t to be though as we reflect on our best ever cup run ended by the probable winners.

With all of our players having ‘average’ games today, there was one player who really did have his best game of the season and therefore the Man of the Match today went to Ben Keen whose arrival at our Club has proved very successful over the past few months.

 

 

SQUAD: Craig Francis, Ben Keen, Danny McCarthy, Mo Bouaziz, Oli Randall(Capt), Kyle Curtis,  Jordan Knight, Scott Gregory, Lewis Watt, Scott Palma, Nathan Dawson, James Hurrell Smith, Charlie Frampton, Ryan Gibbs, Michael Payne