U14A Doncaster Rovers vs Manningham 13th July
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On a cool and cloudy day with a cold Northerly breeze keeping the extemities numb Rovers were set to give Manningham a game without Joel, Jansen and Dion, as well as Phil still coming good.The boys started out with purpose and were soon dominating the game, kicking with the wind. Some good passing and linking up down the right between Drew and Alex and then Chris saw a corner result. Chris took the well weighted kick and Nik D connected with a good header only to see the ball rebound off the right post. Any balls that came into the midfield were quickly controlled by Chris, Alex, Steve and Nik D, while up forward Nick V and Michael Palomares were under notice with good pressure at the ball.
Steve had a long run, but dribbled too far forwards and the keeper neutralised the attack. Shortly after Steve had another chance but shot directly at the keeper. The pressure was mounting. Phil was brought on to replace Michael Palomares and had an immediate impact. A good corner by Chris put the ball right in front where it bobbled around off a couple of defenders allowing Phil time to pounce and put away our first goal. It looked easy.
The defenders were well on top with Drew, Nik D, Matt, Elliot and Michael Piccoli feeding the ball forward with well placed passes to advantage, however the forwards could not find the goals. Whenever the ball went closer to goal Luke was well placed to clean up any miss-kicks that occurred. Alex hit the crossbar with a chip that bounced down only for the keeper to grab. Michael Pal had a couple of chances that both went wide. Then a few optimistic long shots all went over the top, before Alex had a great run from the wing and beat his man as well as the keeper but his outside of the foot flick sailed right across goal and out! Drew came off injured and was replaced by Michael Palomares, leaving the team with only eleven boys, for the rest of the game.
Half-time score: Rovers 1 : Manningham 0
The second half started out in the same manner with Rovers playing confidently but not showing any respect to Manningham who had the wind. A back pass by Manningham was picked up by the keeper, and the resulting free allowed Alex to drive in a good shot high into the right corner of the net for Rovers second goal.
From here on Rovers played without any enthusiasm and started ball watching as mentally the game was already over. Manningham seized on a couple of Rovers bad defensive errors with an across the goal defensive lob coming unstuck to quickly goal and bring a draw back into contention. Rovers were still going forwards from time to time with long range shots off target or straight to the keeper. In one of the play of the days Nick Vass ran the ball forwards and passed right to the feet of Michael Pal in the clear, but he rushed his shot and the opportunity went well wide. Rovers defense came under more attack and looked less than comfortable with a couple of close calls, before the ref blew his whistle for only the fourth time of the day!
Scores at full-time: Rovers 2 Manningham 1
GO ROVERS !! – sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards!
