Southill vs St Augustines

Our after school football match this week saw Southill taking on an experienced St Augustine’s team who, historically, have always given us a real difficult match.

The boys got off to a bright start, staying composed on the ball and looking to pass and move up the pitch quickly. After 6 minutes, a miss-placed pass resulted in St Augustines being through on goal and the striker slotted it calmly into the back of the net. Despite some brave and resilient defending from the boys, a miss-timed tackle resulted in a penalty to St Augustines and the captain of their team powered it home above our goalkeeper making it 0-2 to St Augustines. Through gritted teeth, Southill soldiered on. After a few sustained attacks, a deflected shot fell at the feet of Mason (in Year 5) Who dribbled past the goalkeeper and slotted it into an empty net. After more great build-up play, Reed found himself in the 6-yard box but the ball didn’t fall kindly to him meaning he just couldn’t generate the power needed to slot it past the goalkeeper. Very unlucky indeed! Luck was on our side 1 minute later as Southill gave away yet another penalty however it was blasted over the bar. Well done Oliver who stood tall in order to put doubt in the penalty taker’s mind. Just before half time, St Augustines began to move the ball quickly and after a great bit of skill on the left hand side of the pitch, the left midfielder danced past two players and slotted it into the left hand corner making the score at half-time Southill 1 – 3 St Augustines.

At half time, we discussed the importance of playing the ball a lot quicker, lifting our heads up with the ball at our feet and trying to play the ball through the gaps in order for the likes of Reed, Albert and Mason x 2 to run onto. Sadly, St Augustines didn’t allow us to do this for the opening 10 minutes of the second half and were winning the 50:50 duels all over the pitch meaning that we found ourselves 1-6 down. The final 10 minutes however was a different matter. Southill grew into the game and the boys began to release the ball up the pitch earlier causing all kinds of problems for the three defenders of St Augustines. Samuel on a number of occasions was able to slip some clever through balls into our attackers, however we just couldn’t hit the back of the net. Desperate to score, we left ourselves a little exposed at the back in the final few minutes resulting in a counter attack that led to the final goal of the game. The final score:

Southill 1 – 7 St Augustines 

Despite the scoreline, there were a number of positives to take out of the game. The boys kept going and on a different day the scoreline could have been an awful lot closer. Going forward, we need to be stronger and braver in the tackle over the course of the 40 minutes, move the ball quicker up the pitch and show fight and desire for the entire game rather than in short spells.

My player of the match today was Samuel as he remained composed on the ball for the entire game and was always looking to play through balls in behind the defense.

A huge thank you to St Augustines for a great match today, thank you to all the parents and carers who came and cheered us on and thank you to Mr. Frampton for the cracking photos (as always).

Mr. Prior