Match Report U9 Wolves (09-06-2012)

BMFC

 

vs

 

Wentworth Falls Sharks

 

 

Match Report

A clear sky and bright sunshine made for a glorious day on Saturday, it was only a shame we had to spend an hour in traffic madness, travelling to Wentworth Falls. But the BMFC Wolves put on a brilliant performance that made the trip worthwhile!

It was unfortunate that we had to go without training this week, thanks to ground closure by the Blue Mountains Council, and so full credit to all the parents for making it to Pitt Park early despite the traffic, which gave us some time to have a little run and practice some game play.

Our pre-game focus this week was on ‘pushing forward’ to provide targets forward of the ball when our team is in possession. However, it was a nice patch of mud near our goals in the first half that most of the players were focussing on and seemingly taking great pleasure in playing the ball out right in the middle of … Danny Dunning, having to traipse through the mud to retrieve the ball, didn’t find it as amusing!

The game started with Wentworth Falls doing most of the attacking and our first half goalie, Alex, was brilliant in goals, making some great saves and importantly, playing the ball on quickly and with some great passes to our players in good space forward and wide. He even used his head to make one save and was able to recover quickly and save the ball again which was inspirational – great stuff Alex!

Also inspirational in defence in the first half was Layla who has developed a terrific ability to win the ball in defence. This ability keeps improving each week. This week she started to use a bit more pace and found herself in space with more time to execute good passes. Great work Layla!

Soon we started to control the ball and immediately all the team were switched on to trying to execute our game plan, which was to push forward. Josh, Hamish, Martin, Kynan and Luke all worked really hard to hold their forward positions when it was their turn and we began to see the rewards for our effort, lots of scoring opportunities!

In the first half, Hamish and Josh received the ball forward and in space and were both close to scoring on several attempts. Great work guys!

Hamish finally hammered one home from the tightest of angles, right in the corner and it was 1-1 going into half time.

In the second half, Hamish did an outstanding job in goals with some really quick and long rolls to our players in good positions.

Alex was let off the leash and cut through the Sharks defence. He scored a Messi like goal, running around three defenders at full speed and without changing stride, slamming it through. Great goal Alex!

Kynan was rock solid when he was in defence and consistently made great plays to our players when he had won the ball. When he took a turn to play forward, he maintained good positioning, pushed forward and had the ball at his feet right in front of goals, unlucky not score. Great game Kynan!

Martin again played strongly. He loves being right in the middle of the action 100% of the time and has tremendous stamina. When he played forward, he really concentrated on holding his position and when he found the ball forward on several occasions, showed great skill to trap it and turn towards goal. When Martin hasn’t got the ball, he makes the kind of tackles you see in the World Cup and had the parents in awe on the sidelines again. Great game Martin!

Luke played with his usual relentless endeavour and was great in defence winning the ball and playing it off to good spaces. It is great to watch Luke grow in confidence each week to take the defence on when he has the ball and he was great this week at moving forward with the ball. He won a free kick with a committed effort in close resulting in a kick to his arm and he bravely got up and played on. Great stuff Luke!

We didn’t see a trademark Josh header this week but we saw another exciting side to Josh’s game developing and that is his run forward with the ball. Josh played the forward position really well and made two great runs at goal, with pressure at the last seconds affecting his connection with the ball, was unlucky not to score. Also great work by Josh when we were pushing forward to make really good passes to set us up into scoring opportunities. Great game Josh!

The final score was 2-2 but it was a winning performance the way we really worked hard to play the way we talked about before the game, doing lots of the things we have been working on all season and most importantly looking for each other out on the pitch and working together as a team.

Our effort was truly a team effort on the weekend and for that, the whole team receives the Player of Week award!

Great game Wolves, let’s keep ‘pushing forward’!

Goal Scorers

Hamish – 1 Alex – 1

Player of the Match

Whole Team