Furngate Hawks U16 vs Horsham Athletic U16
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03 September 2023 · Mid Sussex Youth Football League<br>Under 16 Division Four
Home league match played on 03 September 2023.
Kicked off at 10:15 AM
1-3
vs Horsham Athletic U16
Home league match
After beating the opposition to win the Round Robin in the summer, we were confident that we could repeat the same level of passion and intensity that we did in that game.
Without Aidan and Oscar it was always going to be tough.... G arrived feeling unewll, Toby & Max both turned up close to kick off time so we were almost down to 11 players. Even Oliver B was late and that has never been heard of before :).
Warm up was OK from the outfield players but we could see from the outset Harvey was not quite with it. He made up for it with some cracking saves in the shooting part of the warm up.
Back in to the changing rooms and Haris, Max and G were making their competetive debut and we welcome the return of the rest of the squad to Finches Field.
We were buzzing from the sound of Fatboy Slim's 'Right Here, Right Now' and we marched out of the changing rooms ready to cross the line and put our mark on this challenge for the league title....
Barely 2 minutes in to the game and our confidence was shot as a long range, comfortable effort was fumbled in to the net by Harvey. This pre season hsa seen a big improvement n this area of his game but unfortunately, when a GK makes a mistake it is inevitably a goal.
After getting on the ball for a good spell of possession we worked it from back to front and Rio slipped a delightful short pass for Connor to hit a long range rocket from the edge of the box past the full stretched keeper, leaving him no chance. Our tails were up and we are back level.
Jack, Tyler and Oli were playing the ball out across the back line and we enticed them to press..... Our balls in to the midfield were perfect and Connor & Rio time and time again found acres of space but either dwelled too long / took too many players on / didn't have the runners to pick out and although we didn't lose the ball as often as we have been guilty of in the past, it was still too often.
We conceded again before HT with Toby over playing it in an the goal area unnecessarily and we were heads down again. Mistakes happen but we will iron these out only when we have all players at training every week!
A bit of moaning speckled through the game but this is expected from us as when our backs are against the wall we have 2 extremes - come out with our big boy pants and work as a team / bitch and moan at each other and not take accountability ourselves.
A third goal conceded, even though we played 15 mins against 10 men we just couldn't lift it to the next gear!
I do not want this to sound negative as we have had mixed bag during pre season with chasing signings and getting attendance but this will improve and I am sure that the performance would earn 3 points against most sides in this league. WE HAVE TO IRON OUT THE GOALS WE GIVE AS GIFTS!!
Great goal from Connor, free flowing football from back to front and Tyler with a MoM performance....
Always loads of positives despite the result lets smash Southwick next week