Report

The league season came to a close with a tense and intriguing encounter with our sister team Cromwell Blues.

The boys began the first half well, having lots of possession in the opponents half and pushing them back with some good attacks. The Blues very early on set out their stall that they were defending as a team and it was clearly going to be hard to break them down today. Ethan in goal was fairly quiet but did make one great save at the feet of the attacker as he was about to shoot. Aron and Josh in defence were playing very well and were mopping up at the back, supported by Lloyd, when required. In fairness although a lot of the half was played out in the Blues half, they had 7 players back most of the time which posed a problem which the lads could not find an answer to. The best chances fell to Luke who turned his defender brilliantly on the egde of the area to gain half a yard only to get a bobble from the pretty poor pitch and glance his shot wide. Carter created another chance of note all by himself as he jinked his way past a number of Blues players before producing a good cross which no-one could get on the end of. A third chance went begging when a ball which Max was chasing ran back to the Blues goal area but just rolled outside the box. The keeper was at a loss what to do as he couldn't pick it up so he stopped. This seemed to confuse everybody and Max stopped also and the chance was lost.

After a really possitive first half the Reds were eager to get going in the second and for the first 10 minutes of the half again had the lions share of the forward play. This period brought maybe the best chance of a Reds goal as Max ran on to a through pass, leaving the defender wanting for pace and leaving him 1 on 1 with the keeper. As Max shot he failed to get hold of it properly and the shot was well held by the keeper who without being truely tested with any really good shots, had not dropped a thing all match - well played Jamie. The Blues offered more threatening attacking play in the last 10 minutes and Ethan again throw himself in front of a close range shot to save the day. Even with this in mind though it looked very unlikely a goal would come for either side as the last minute beckoned. Sadly this was not to be and a goal mouth scramble was poorly dealt with to leave the Blues to poke a shot into the bottom corner right at the death for an unlikely goal.

To summarize, a game which we did definately NOT deserve to lose. Having said this I don't think we did enough to win it either and the way the Blues team was set up is a testiment to Steve and Paul and i'm not ashamed to say that they beat me for tactics today all ends up. The Blues all defended as a team and were very disciplined and hard working for the whole match. They defended deep and hit us on the break when the chances came and we could not really create many chances. When we did create some, the finishing was off the mark today. This is the only slight critisism I have of the Reds performance as they all played very well and couldn't have done much more. Ciaran won special award for a hard working display and Carter at last won the man-of-the-match for a much more confident display than some of his previous ones - more of this to come from him I hope as he has obviously has the ability. 

Well done to all the boys for a season i've enjoyed massively, although I have much less hair now than last year! Back to work on the training pitch now with the main aims being - more passing which will help break down tough defences, confidence with the ball at feet and find a way to stop conceding very late goals! If the boys improve as much in the next year as they have this year i'm very excited to see what they're capable of.