Knox Under 16 Pennant South East v’s Waverley
Round 1: 8:20pm at Hedley Hull Field (Away)
Game conditions: mild, dry night 18 degrees
First half:
Knox had a couple of early breaks to put immediate pressure on the Waverley defense, with two attempts on goal by Ryan, Ben and James, but well saved by the Waverley Keeper. Waverley followed with a strong counter attack, but the knox defense put paid their attempts with some great tackling and passing out to safety. The turn over allowed Knox to go on the offensive again with a 3rd attempt by Suhail that was just deflected wide of the goal. This resulted in the first long corner of the match, with the 4th attempt at goal by Ryan saved by the goalie.
At the 20th minute with a break down the left side James used his great ball skills and speed to keep the defence off guard and push the first goal through passed the keeper
1 – 0 in the 20th minute ( and the crowd went wild…)
Another counter attack by Waverley was stopped in its tracks with the Knox defence playing really strong, with the captain, Jordan, commanding from the back ; Todd backing up and supporting his team mates and keeping the ball out wide. E van had a great game using his fantastic speed to chase down free balls and with a few well-placed tackles the ball was turned over and passed up the middle through to Suhail, who made short work of pushing the ball through the keeper into the net.
2 – 0 in the 29th minute
Second half: Score 2-0
Again an early attack by Knox allowed for the third goal of the night going to knox with Billy, supported by Ben out on the left wing and Ryan on the other inner, getting passed 3 defenders in the Circle to punch the ball into the corner.
3 – 0
The pressure was on, with Jonno backing up Suhail at center supported by James and Ryan on the inners, and Ben and Saffal out on the wings.
From a long corner Jonno passed wide out through the wing and out to James on the left hand side who made a great pass across goal to Todd in a perfect position, who managed to get his stick to the ball for the deflection, but was robbed by the post, with the ball just going wide for a 16.
Knox kept up the pressure and a minute later were back into the circle with Ben pinging a shot off at goal and chalking another score on the board.
4 -0
At the restart Waverley had a number of runs down the field before being brought back under control by the knox defense , Blake running a fantastic wall across the back to bring the ball back under control and passing out the half line. Passing up the right through Jake and onto Saffal, and back to the top of the circle, where Billy expertly claimed a short corner. Saffal pushed out to Jonno who expertly drew out the defenders and flipped the ball across to Billy to fire off at the Goalie. Well Saved by Waverley, but Knox was awarded a second chance with another Short corner. This time Jonno made sure with one of his signature power shots through the keeper, ricocheting of the back board like a gunshot. (and a lot of admiration from the crowd..)
5 – 0
This was followed by another two short corners as Knox continued to place more pressure on the Waverley defence, ech attemopt being saved or missing the target, Waverley continued to try to push down the left side, but the steady control from Tait ensured that they didn’t get very far, passing the ball short to Tristan or Ryan and playing a great support role as the team put the next offensive wave in motion .
Final Score 5 – 0
A great confidence booster of a game for the young Under 16 team, I look forward to follow their progress through the season.