Match Report - KERSAL FC U12 S - 29 May 2021

A real ding-dong battle against a good team finished in yet another draw for Roach Greens.

The instruction before the game was to play a high line and attack the game and this is what Roach Greens did. We'd worked on it in training and the offside trap was working well. It looked like we could be heading for a goalless first half until Jailson used his strength to go past a couple of Kersal players, before unselfishly playing in Alex to finish into an empty net. Kersal rallied themselves and put Roach under pressure straight away with Ewan making some brilliant saves again but in the 26th minute the pressure paid off and a one on one chance resulted in the equaliser. Roach didn't let their heads drop though and were back ahead a minute later, some quick thinking saw Jailson take an early throw to put Alex through on goal and he again finished well. 2-1 at half time.

The half time instructions were just to keep going, though we knew the second half was going to be tough.

And so it proved to be. Kersal were fired up and pushing Roach back again and again. Ewan continued to keep them at bay in the Roach goal but a slightly scrappy goal after 40 minutes saw Kersal draw level again. Roach once more picked themselves up and looked to get ahead. In the 50th minute, Josh won yet another ball at the back and strode forward into the midfield before playing a great through ball for Alex. He still had lots to do and the keeper came out to make it difficult but Alex went wide around him before expertly finding the goal for his hat-trick. The tiredness crept in tough and Kersal were rewarded for their efforts, when just 2 minutes from the end a shot at goal took a cruel deflection to nestle in the corner of the Roach goal. 3-3 was the final score and a great game to watch.

Player of the match awards went to Josh who was picked out by the opposition coaches for his excellent game, Alex for 3 more goals and a good attacking performance and Nate who again worked really hard in the midfield winning balls and looking to spread the play.