Potentially going to be a long one (sorry!).
Friday nights' two friendlies against the Waverton U8 Rockets were really interesting. It showed that we aren't a million miles off, the two main areas that we need to improve are being settled in our positions (we surprisingly lost some of that) and also our finishing in front of goal. Both teams though played incredibly well and on a brief survey of the boys afterwards they all attested to being incredibly tired after a hard week. Good work to all though and thanks to everyone that was involved, both from a boys and a parental perspective.
Moving to Saturday, I was looking forward to this as being an opportunity to get something out of the game, but on retrospect because we gave the friendlies a full-on attitude the night before, I think the boys were on the whole just even more tired than pre-Friday training; something to be aware of in future.
The game with Princes Villa was certainly a result that didn't reflect the game. On the whole we played really well and when we went forward we always looked a threat.
However, stunned by two early goals in the first quarter you could see the boys heads drop, we started a very unwelcome habit of trying to play all of our football in our own half and especially right in front of our own goal, but we regained our focus in Q2 and that particular section ended 0-0. Q3 we went again, we again started playing too deep in our own half which just invited pressure from the other team and this time, resulted in another goal for Princes Villa. That really spurred us into life and not long after that, Xander did something he threatened on several occasions the previous evening - took the ball out of defence, skipped past a few players and slotted it home nicely. Our second competitive goal! The Arrows collective heads went up and within a minute, Xander again had a shot, this time a Beckham-esque effort from the halfway line which was only (only) narrowly wide. Then a very uncharacteristic few minutes of pressure from the opposition meant they took their forth and we went into the last quarter 4-1.
The final period was a real battle, some good chances again and great tackles, but unfortunately a fifth was scored by the home team, mainly due to the boys being caught pushing forward - my fault as I had asked them to take a higher line in an effort to get another goal.
I said this to some of the parents at the end today - the boys are doing amazing. We lost some focus, but on the whole played well. I can see that some boys are looking progressively tired, which isn't surprising. With that in mind I'll be making a few changes over the coming weeks. The boys that are affected haven't done anything wrong, this is just rotation that is needed to ensure everyone has a fair chance.
A final note; the manager of Princes Villa told me that we have his team the most competitive game of the season so far - that is a real compliment.
Thanks again to all, and see you on Friday.
Carl
AFC Waverton U8 Arrows
07896 515717
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