U9 Cougars dig deep to defeat the Dragons - and look forward to a cup semi-final

20 March 2010

After last week's excellent result, the Cougars took on Unicorn Dragons in the quarter final of the cup. With Luke out due to illness, the Cougars knew they were in for a hard game against a very good Timperley side. Cougar’s starting line up of Martin, Ben, Joe, Charlie, Neeki, Will and birthday boy Freddie stuttered to get going in the first third with the Dragons bossing the midfield. Martin had to be on top form as the Dragons bombarded the Cougars area. Neeki, Charlie and Freddie worked hard to try to get possession of the ball and towards the end of the third they did just that, this lead to the Cougars only effort of the first third with Will hitting the target from twenty meters only to see the keeper save.

15 mins: Unicorn Dragons 0 Wilmslow Town Cougars 0

Cougars made two changes bringing Harry and Olivia on, and they started to play some good football with Will and Harry linking up well down the left hand side of the pitch. Neeki was unlucky straight from a corner with the ball rolling along the crossbar and out for a goal kick. With Charlie starting to stamp his authority on the midfield the Cougars now looked the better side. Charlie was brought down thirty meters from goal in Will territory, he hit a left footed screamer which the keeper could only parry, Harry was on it in a flash and he smashed it into the back of the net.

The Cougars confidence was lifted and it was only a matter of time before they got a second and it was Neeki who scored it with a superbly crafted shot, after beating one man and passing the ball to Harry down the left Harry beat his man and cut back a tremendous pass to Neeki who didn’t have to break his stride before smashing past the helpless Dragons keeper.

30 mins: Unicorn Dragons 0 Wilmslow Town Cougars 2

The Cougars made two more changes with Ben and Freddie coming back on. The Dragons had nothing to lose and they went for it straight from the kick off. They hit a speculative forward ball and chased it hard, the Cougars defence thought they had dealt with it but it rebounded off an oncoming attacker which fell nicely for their centre forward to finish off well.

The Dragons sensed the cougars were nervous and worked hard to equalise, and that’s what they did with the Cougars not clearing their lines after a dubious throw in went against them the Dragons squared the game with a good strike.

For the second week running it was squeaky bum time and there was at least ten minutes left. Cougars raised their game and tested the Dragons keeper a number of times which he dealt with well. It was from a corner the breakthrough came, Ben who has been putting some great corners into the box put this one straight in the back of the net leaving the keeper flapping at it. The cougars decided it was time to shut up shop and brought Joe back on and played with three at the back and three in the middle. The Cougars now were showing steel like resilience and although they were not very adventurous in the last five minutes they played some good passing football.

45 mins: Unicorn Dragons 2 Wilmslow Town Cougars 3

MOTM- this was a hard decision this week as there were some very good performances, but one lad gave everything he had although he always does and was very unlucky not to score in the first third, so MOTM goes to Freddie.

Source: D Jones

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