U16 Girls Dayze duz it again

The story of our Weymouth woes.

It’s hard to pick out the positive highlights of a game like the one we endured against Weymouth but, looking back, there were some.

Unfortunately Lydi’s Mum’s tractor broke down on the way to the match so Dayze stepped into the goalkeeper’s role for the first half and played out of her skin! From the first whistle Weymouth set up camp in our half and despite some determined efforts to stem the tide it was just a question of time until they scored.

It was in fact just over 7 mins until the first one went in but even in that time the team had squashed a number of other dangerous attacks and Dayze had worked so hard to save a number of well aimed shots. Still at least we had 7 minutes at nil-nil!

After that the rest of the first half was just like replaying a bad video. We got the ball, we gave it away, Weymouth attacked, shot and on another 5 occasions scored. Depressing to watch.

However, another couple of positives were observed in that Cookie started putting in some of the most forceful challenges ever resulting in her robbing the Weymouth girls on a number of occasions. Great stuff.

The final positive came about 37 mins into the first half where we won the ball and slotted it through to ‘golden boots’ Hannah who did what she does best and took ‘route 1’ to goal and blasted it past the keeper! Great work! The whistle blew, it was 6-1.

I’d never seen a goalkeeper break a sweat during a match before. I’m not sure if it was the warm sunny evening (until the fog rolled in) or the effort of saving numerous shots, or the physical demands of pulling the ball out of the net but Dayze was glowing nicely!!

My half time rant may have helped a little in that we had a well constructed attack in the early stage of the second half but after that our game deteriorated into a sad display of ‘punt and hope’ football. Everything we’d done in training went out the window and nearly every time we got the ball we gave it away just as quickly.

During the whole of the match I lost count of the number of times our players ducked the ball, made pretend headers , made some appaling passes or just got out the way and let the ball roll off to Weymouth. No heart, no soul, no courage and no determination. Underpinned by a lack of communication and teamwork it was a recipe for disaster and sure enough disaster struck.

As the cold fog rolled in and the game became even more fragmented the final nail in the coffin came in the form of an own goal.

Still, there were a couple more positives to come out of the second half. The first being it was only 40 minutes long (or at least it should have been but for some reason the ref squeezed a couple more minutes of pain into it) and the second was that we only lost 14-1, it could have been a lot worse.

Its fair to say Weymouth are a County class side and it was unlikely that we were going to beat them BUT I think we could have put on a better display that this.

MVP, not surprisingly was Dayze but a mention has to be made also to Cookie for her determined work – keep it up.

Next match (and the third to last) is away to the Queen Bees………..

U16 girls - Terraball, terraball, game and ref

We knew right from the moment we arrived it was going to be a ‘rubbish’ game just like the amount of ‘rubbish’ that was found all over the pitch including dog poo!.

Anyway, we were getting organised and ready to ‘start dead on time’ (as requested by the ref) and soon we began to get the ball moving. Unfortunately nothing seemed to go right and added to that we were low on numbers - sometimes down to as low as 8 on the pitch! The Terras were playing well but our competitive spirit meant we were not going down without a fight.

Soon the first goal against us was scored but it was under very strange circumstances as the ref decided to give the Terras a free kick because he thought Lydi has picked the ball up whilst it was still outside her box (which she wasn’t). Disappointingly and in complete contravention of the rules the ref then proceeded to coach the Terras on how best to take the kick, where to stand etc etc. At this point we realised they had 12 players on the pitch including the ref!

Half time appeared and it was 2-0 to the Weymouth side , the team talk was short and everyone was thinking of ways to get us scoring, our sprits were still high and was lifted by a text read by Emily’s from Tony who sadly couldn’t be at the game. We came back onto the pitch feeling very positive and looking to score some goals.

When it got to 3-0 nothing was looking good. Needless to say no one on our team liked the score and to make matters worse the Ref didn’t’ control the behaviour of the Terras even when Rachael seemed to become the ball and got pushed, shoved and kicked all over the place.

Meanwhile Rhea was limping around the pitch with a nasty knock she took to her leg from a Weymouth girl (which once again was not dealt with by the ref).

Weymouth scored their 4th and this inspired Kat to make one of her ‘ Krazy Kat runs’ beating almost the whole of the left hand side of Weymouth’s defence but couldn‘t quite get the finish we wanted. During this time we had to swap the referees due to the first one limping off the pitch for some reason (it’s a pity this didn’t happen earlier!)

But by now we’d had enough and people were beginning to get upset, tired due to the lack of players and just angry at Weymouth for the foul play.

Towards the final minutes Hannah was trying hard to win the ball but a player went down and another brought her elbow to Hannah’s chest! The parents complained to the ref who, instead of dealing with the incident, decided to give a warning to a couple of the parents (Cookies and Daisy’s mums) but at least they were getting into the game!
The whistle blew and it was 4-0 defeat. MVP goes to Kat for her amazing runs and good teamwork. Well done to everyone who played and hopefully we can work on the lessons learned from this match.
By Hannah

U16G If Only......

You get more drama with the U16 Girls than watching a whole week's episodes of Eastenders, Coronation Street and Casualty all at once. No only were the team forced to start with 9 players due to injury and prior engagements, our usual manager could not make the match for personal reasons. A new manager was headhunted from the myriads of capable candidates and Em's dad accepted the temporary post and even declined the golden handshake, performance bonus and retainer usually snapped up by new coaching staff. This was a Wednesday evening kick-off as we now had to catch up on the matches lost to bad weather earlier in the season (something we seem to do every year!).

The pre-match huddle was used to remind the team that they are all good players and with a bit of luck could hold a draw or even win. Poole Town Youth were just above us in the table and so we were not expecting an anihilation. A safe 3-3-2 formation was chosen to give a strong defence and as the shadows grew longer on the grass, we kicked off at 6pm.

The defensive formation was well chosen and the team controlled well in their half, but lacked the numbers to carry the ball through from the halfway line to score. It continuted for 17 minutes of valiant effort until a corner against us left a couple of our players (who shall remain nameless) in space, together, on the goal line, with the ball at their feet. Panic set in, they stared at each other, one kicked it at the other, whom it bounced off and flopped into our net. Mental note: must get the players to communicate.

The first half finished 3-0 down, most probably due to our depleted number. But it was ONLY 3 goals! And everyone came off knowing they had done their best, running their socks off.

Lucy's fresh pair of legs put us up to 10 players for the second half and PTY struggled to score only 2 more goals against us, again probably due to unforced errors. These were in minutes 5 and 7 so for 33 minutes, 10 exhausted players held PTY at bay. The tired legs also started to hinder finishing off any of our attacks with accurate shots at the goal.

I was extremely proud of the effort the team put in both halves, and the "Running the Socks Off Award of the Week" is shared by Rhea, Rachael, Kathryn, Liv and Clarissa. These midfield players covered more ground than the rest of PTY did all match, sometimes covering defence and attack at the same time. However, Most Valuable Player goes to the defender who stifled PTY attacks many times, (one by blocking a pass with her cheek - ouch) and once by allowing herself to be brought down to gain a free kick. Clarissa was always there as the last defender and is always invaluable to the team in reducing the number of balls getting to Lydia.

The match sequence and final result has been seen too many times before. If only they had enough subs to rest the tired legs. If only they could transfer the excellent football into goals. They can play like the top team in the league for 10 minutes each match. If only they could keep hold of that magic that will let them play like that for the whole match.

After the final whistle, several of the managers of PTY were kind enough to compliment the U16s on how well they played and say how all of the girls had superior technical abilities. My only hope is that they come to realise how good they are and channel that self belief into winning games for the rest of the season and in the summer tournaments.

Lawrence