Yet another competitive game
where we are playing so much better than the end result suggests – our last
game three weeks ago against Tarvin ended 8-3 so at least we are consistent in
terms of a 5-goal margin!
At times we sometimes
individually and then collectively drift through sections of the match, for
instance we weren’t on it from kick off and 30 seconds later we were picking
the ball out of the net after Tarvin seemed to run through all of our team to
score. We picked ourselves up though and started to play our game – a ‘worldie’
from Tarvin’s Emily (a volley from a great drop ball pass just outside the box)
took us to 2-0 down but we kept our heads up and went for it – some great
passing from the back, through Harry in midfield out to Jack Br ended with a
great strike to bring us back into the game at the end of the first quarter – Tarvin
2 – Arrows 1.
The second quarter went
against us and it’s here that I think the game started to slip away – we were
winning the ball across all areas of the pitch, but then instead of looking for
the pass like we did last week against Ellesmere Port, we brought the blinkers
on and tried to run repeatedly at Tarvin to try and beat them; they took
advantage of this, and three times hit us on the break to take the end of Q2 to
– Tarvin 5 – Arrows 1.
After a few words to the boys
in the break, they kicked off the third quarter and really ran at Tarvin –
there were moments of good passing, but on the whole we were chasing the play
for large portions – some great saves were made, but a fair few scrambles away
from goal were needed which showed we were starting to play too deep and too
close to our goal. Tarvin made a break on us again and scored another well
struck shot, but that was soon countered by a great dribbling run by OMG
through the entire length of the field to slot the ball in to bring us to Tarvin
6 – Arrows 2.
The boys in the final break
were ready to try to take it to Tarvin in the last period and I think, similar
to the first quarter, we played at times our best football; we succumbed to a
goal via a bit of a scramble midway through, but overall in this period we
dominated and towards the end we did a beautiful passing move that went through
about 5 Tarvin players but we just couldn’t finish it off – it summed up the
game as a whole to be honest. End of Q4 and the game: Tarvin 7 – Arrows 2.
As always, I’m immensely
proud of our boys – I wasn’t expecting to meet Tarvin again for a while, but
had hoped that we would be more competitive after coming off our last game vs.
Ellesmere Port. Yet again I’ve been told we provide the best competitive match
(that’s four teams now – and they really aren’t blowing smoke up the
proverbial!) – we are competitive, extremely so, but we need to find a
consistency that will enable us to turn the good performances into good wins.
It will come, I am sure of that and the creation of two teams, where the
same boys playing in their dedicated teams week in week out will only help to
accomplish this.
A quick word on the Shield
competition – we are now for the next few months no longer playing league
matches, but instead we are playing in a Cup/Shield round-robin then knock-out
competition. Because we won last weekend against EP, it bumped us up the league
standings a bit which meant we have found ourselves in a harder draw! Initially
I was annoyed compared to what I have seen other teams draw, but now see it for
what it is – when we come out of this period (playing against strong teams
every week), we will be far stronger ourselves collectively when we re-enter
our league fixtures. Just something to think about when we play for the next
couple of months.
To reiterate, I was proud of
every single boy today – there is much to do, but thanks to Jack Binns, Sam,
Harry, Elliott, Max, Oliver Wrigley, Tom, OMG and Jack Broadhurst for
collectively trying to be as competitive as possible and trying to push us on.
Finally - 13 out of 14 boys
are available next week, against a team that currently sits in the middle league
– it’s going to be a very difficult selection for me – please try to understand
this when the squad is released.
Thanks all.
Carl
AFC Waverton U9 Arrows
07896 515717
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