Hawks Earn 4th Win V Youth This Season

'It's only a friendly' is never a phrase you hear from Kaysha or myself and this was destined to be a spicy affair.

We only had a squad of 13 players but we more than fancied ourselves against the ever improving Youth team under Nuno's watchful gaze.

Arrival, preparation and warm up was on point and with a bit of shifting around, Ollie Hobden was given the captains armband after a great training session on Tuesday, some motivational chat in the players whattsapp group and general energy levels that he has been bringing of late.

Also, he was given the opportunity to play CDM and that enabled us to move Tyler into CAM and get him creating further up the pitch.

We looked dominant from the first whistle and after Tyler showed determination to chase a long ball down and pressure the keeper, he nicked it out of his hands and set up Kian who shimmied past 1 CB and drove the ball through the legs of the other to put us 1-0 up!

The opposition were playing lovely football but with a striker that has the captains armband, takes the throw ins/free kicks/corners, shoots every time he gets the ball.... it leaves them a little one dimensional. That said, he did wriggle free more often than we would have liked and managed to grab an equaliser with a thunderous left footed strike that saw Oliver have his hands bent back as the ball rifled in to the net.

Half time saw us level but with the information given to Owen and Tyler to be brave and confident enough to attempts shots the rest was pretty much more of the same.

Second half, we didn't need to get out of 2nd gear really. We looked so good on the ball with Aiden, Rio, Connor and Tyler constantly playing intricate, short passes to get around the opposition and Antos, Aidan and Ollie H hitting direct passes to Tommy, Kian, Ben and Rio we carved them open time and time again.

A flurry of goals followed in a short space of time and Ben bagged one after Antos used his strength in the box to win a flick on from Rio's whipped in corner. A composed finish saw us edge back in front.

An own goal but by far the pick of todays goals was Rio who received a tidy pass from Antos, skinned the right back and drove past him with pace to hit a stunning left foot rocket straight over the keeper, off the underside of the crossbar and in! That was total football!!

Their striker grabbed another one after a long ball wasn't dealt with and Oliver was caught a little flat footed but a tidy finish none the less.

Another win lads and you should all be proud as parents and players as that was a very accomplished performance.

MoM was Aiden Powell who was superb from start to finish. Ran hard, made tackles, a range of short and long passing and always looking to make runs in both directions. Superb mate

Up The Hawks