U9 Panthers unlucky not to draw - where was Lady Luck

 

Matches against Broadheath are always tricky affairs as they consistently turn out good sides.

 

From the kick off we opened brightly but as soon as the ball was given away it was clear that this was a dangerous side, as they neatly passed the ball between themselves and put some good moves together.

 

We were holding our own, a great cross from Joel was fires across the box, but we just couldn’t get the necessary touch to guide the ball home, and soon afterwards a corner from Sam was met by Joel who headed just over the crossbar.

 

We were certainly causing them problems and if it hadn’t been for a fantastic save by the Broadheath keeper we would have gone into the lead from a great shot by Henry.

 

But despite our best efforts we soon went a goal down as we were caught on the break and didn’t deal properly with the threat in our own penalty area.

 

Scot however was still putting in great runs; Joel was powerful with his tackles as was Teniel who was putting in some great defensive work.

 

Soon enough we were back on level terms, a corner was taken by Sam H who curled a hard low cross into the far corner of the goal.

 

In the dying stages of the period, Tom in goal kept us in the game with a fine save he knocked ball up onto the bar from a long range shot, a scramble in the goalmouth say the ball finally bundled away.

 

Second period.

 

Finn, Ben and Lincoln came on for this period, but we were soon on the back foot, a cross in from Urmston wasn’t dealt with and we were 2-1 down.

 

Lincoln was making his mark with some good runs down the wing, but its fair to say that we soon seemed to be just about hanging on to the match, more fine saves from Tom sometimes in very quick succession were keeping us in the game, but we weren’t going to hang on for ever and soon enough the third Broadheath goal came to see us 3-1 down.

 

Whilst I may be biased I just don’t think we got any lucky breaks, Lincoln put in a great cross that Finn headed just wide, a great passing move between Lincoln and Ben saw a chance on goal that we couldn’t finish.

 

But likewise we were not at our best, the passing was not good between us and at times we just didn’t seem alert enough.

 

 

Third period.

 

Scott, Henry and Sam D reappeared from the subs bench and we were still under pressure, some caused by our own sluggishness in closing down on attackers.

 

A stroke of fine play from Will was to change the tempo of the game, will chose to score using his knee rather than the usual methods involving feet or head. In this game though we weren’t going to argue and needed everything we could get. At 3-2 down we thought we had a chance and the urgency came back to our team,

 

Our luck was not to last however, a last man challenge from Teniel went against him and the ref gave a penalty which Urmston scored to go to 4-2.

 

We kept up the fight however and Teniel soon put in a surging run from defence down the right hand wing and from just inside the Urmston half hit a great long range shot/ cross that was to hard for the keeper to deal with leaving Scott with an easy tap in. Back to 4-3.

 

Now it was Urmston’s turn to hang on as tried our best to get back on equal terms and minutes from the end we thought we had done, but a long free kick from Sam H rattled the post and refused to go in.

 

Sadly the final whistle went a defeat but a gamed summed up best by the Broadheath manager who admitted that we had at least deserved a draw.