Desborough Town Lions U12 vs Earls Barton U12
County Cup – 1st Round
Team: Benjamin Streeton, Oliver Trembecki, Robert Murray, Joseph Kearsley, Jake Morrisey (c), Joe Halton, Sam Bayliss, Cam Duff, Harrison Thompson
Subs: Jack Sutton, Adam Van Zolen, Alec Lovering
A brief reprise from the League in the form of the County Cup and an opportunity for the lads to put right the things that went wrong in the league cup a couple of weeks ago. Expectations were of a win naturally but today was to be more about the performance – the opposition are a new team whom have struggled to find their feet in the third division and with all due respect to them, anything less than a victory would be a major shock. For the lads then it was about composure, using the ball, movement and solid passing.
The first half however was poor, too many players excited and impatient and, although a 6-0 lead was gained before half time there had been no sign of any fluid passing – we hadn’t put more than 4 consecutive passes together during the whole 30 minutes.
We faced the unusual situation then of having a half time team talk that laid out the disappointments of our performance all whilst being 6 goals to the good! It’s important that we gain from every game, every session and sometimes that means understanding where we have gone wrong as much as it means acknowledging what we have done well. So the boys were sent back out with Kirk’s words ringing in their ears.
The improvement was there, albeit in bite size initially – in particular Cam and Alec linking up well on several occasions. If there was one player that embodied the half time team talk it was Jack – he curbed his usual direct play and gained himself 5 assists in the second half as well as a well-earned goal.
This was a decent stretch of the legs for the squad with everyone playing their part in a solid overall performance, however we really do need to start games in the right way – the slow first half starts of a couple weeks back may have gone but following the tactics and in game instructions are another form of application that we need to adopt form the off and yesterday could have been a great opportunity to really retain the ball well, rather than the “we’ve got the ball, leg it forward” approach we ended up starting with.
All in all though, we are into the hat for the next round and anytime you win 12-0 it should be celebrated – so well done. A mention also for the plucky Desborough lads who kept going, didn’t get disheartened and were a credit to their manager.
Result: Desborough Town Lions 0 – 12 Earls Barton
Scorers: Harrison Thompson x 3, Jake Morissey x 2, Cam Duff x 2, Alec Lovering x 2, Jack Sutton, Bob Murray and OG from Desborough.
Man of the Match: Jack Sutton