I had the pleasure of meeting our old D coach Kevin Conway in Cavendish Park this morning. Generous as ever, he was helping out with the C team though his boys play for BPR B.
Now this just happens to be one of those Sundays when all our teams win their matches and score a barrel load of goals! Must be the new warm up drills:)
LJJ (London Japanese Juniors) 1 – 10 RR U9D (HT 1 – 5)
Summary: A fantastic team performance, albeit against a new team, but a team with 2 or 3 very skilful players.
Similar to the B team, passing drills during training helped the team really improve their performance.
We battled hard to gain control of the game and then passed the ball superbly to create a number of good chances and our final goal was a passing move that Barcelona would have been proud of – you can read more about that goal in the Moment of the Match.
- Player of the Match: Isabelle – an all round performance, with 2 wonderfully composed side-foot finishes into the corners, saw Isabelle claim her first goal for the D’s, followed by 2 more goals to claim her first Hat-Trick. As well as her finishing Isabelle added a wonderful work rate, solid tackling and a lovely attitude to the game. Well done Isabelle.
- Tackle Monster: Laksh / Jouvier – In a game that we won so well, the 2 centre backs ensured we stayed in control. Every time the skilful LJJ players dribbled through Jouvier and Laksh were there to snaffle the attacks time after time. They also showed very good composure on the ball when they dispossessed LJJ to set-up a number of attacking opportunities.
- Pass Master: Nathan – WOW ! What a performance. Nathan was all about composure and vision today and showed this with 4 assists and could have had many more. From short pass and moves, to dribbling past a player or 2 and then spreading the play from one wing to another Nathan was the catalyst for our performance with his passing today.
- Moment of the Match: Our tenth goal started with Thomas dispossessing LJJ near the corner flag, and under pressure playing the ball backwards to Nathan, who played the ball back to Laksh on halfway. Laksh feinted to pass the ball out to Liam on the left wing and as the LJJ players moved across to the left Laksh slipped Nathan back in on the right. Nathan took one touch and then laid the ball into Thomas on the right corner of the box -–Thomas controlled the ball, spun and crossed to Isabelle who took a touch to control the ball and side footed calmly into the left corner of the net.
A wonderful team goal !! [wow, a goal to remember for sure! Ed.] - Goals: Sohan x 4, Isabelle x 3, Liam x 2, and Thomas.
- Assists: Nathan x 4, Liam x 3, Sohan x 2 and Thomas.
Bessingby Park Rangers 2 – 11 RRU9A (HT 1-4)
We won this match with a superb display of attacking football against a good team. That is not to say the match was easy because our Man of the Match played in defence and one of the runner ups was the goalkeeper. But we were much better at providing unselfish assists to players in better positions and that in turn was because our running off the ball was excellent. Our individual performances were so good that even our striker who scored five goals and provided three assists didn’t win Man of the Match!
- Moment of the match: I have to mention Harry Grundy’s turn, touch and rifled shot into the top right corner from the corner of the penalty box.
- Tackle monster: Matthew Wizbek pips Cameron Mulligan because he and his partner had to defend against 3 and 4 opponents while their team mates got back from one of our regular raiding parties.
- Pass master: while we had several terrific assists we’re going to give this week’s award to Carlow Day-Lewis, today’s goalkeeper. His distribution was exceptional (and he also saved us twice in the opening five minutes).
- Man of the match: while our team certainly supported each other when attacking they did leave our defence somewhat exposed, which is why we are recognizing Matthew Wizbek’s outstanding performance this week. He slowed people up, he tackled, he passed intelligently and he enjoyed his duels with their dribblers.
- Assists: Harry Grundy 3; Brian McGovern 3; Daniel Bampoe-Addo; Leo Dowling; Cameron Mulligan.
- Goals: Harry Gundy 5; Leo Dowling 3; Billy Joyce, Brian McGovern (right foot – told I have to mention that); Cameron Mulligan.
- Squad: Carlow, Daniel (Capt), Matthew, Cass Lewis, Billy, Leo, Harry, Brian, Cameron.
RR U9B 8 v 2 Larkspur Rovers (HT 4 v 1)
What a contrast this was to our last game two weeks ago! We’ve been working hard on our passing during training and today we felt the benefits of that.
We didn’t give a Pass Master award at the end of the last match as we didn’t pass the ball well enough. Today you could make an argument that every player deserved one. We also kept our shape much better today, both defending and attacking well as a team.
One of our most accomplished performances. Well done boys!
- Goals: Conor x 3, Harry x 3, Riley and Charlie.
- Assists: Austin x 2, Harry x 2, Deven and Adam.
- Man of the match: Conor – A great team performance today, but there were also several very good individual performances. Conor deserves the MOTM award for an excellent all round performance. He did really well both as sweeper and in midfield. He also got forward to good effect, bagging three goals – the first one after just 30 seconds.
- Tackle Monster: Charlie – again, lots of good tackling throughout the team, but Charlie wins this week’s award. He did particularly well playing as sweeper in the first half with a number of well-timed tackles and interceptions.
- Pass Master: Harry – Lots of good passing from everyone, but Harry deserves a particular mention (and wins this week’s award). Harry’s instinct is to often try to beat his player (which he did several times today), but he’s also increasingly finding teammates that have made runs into space and did that well on a number of occasions today.
- Match Squad: Adam Ozcan, Alan Opiatowski (C) (GK, 2nd half), Austin Kiboma, Charlie Dwyer, Conor Neethling, Deven Vaja, Harrison Harding, Harry Huse and Riley Halligan (GK, 1st half).
The C team did not have a game as the other team did not show up.
Remember the players are goal scoring maniacs one week and [fill in the blank].. another week!
Pat/Reg/Daryl/Ray&Sanj.