Saints Under 13’s in County Action
Sam Dale, James Roffe, Ewan Hughes Rowlands, Hamish French and Michael Ward in action for the County under 13s
On a wet Oundle day Northants started brightly and scored quickly with a powerful strike from Ed and the boys enjoyed plenty of good possession but didn’t break down the Worcestershire defense, a succession of fast breaks from the visitors saw Jay’s goal peppered with shots with the defense outnumbered. Worcestershire 2’s 7-2 Northamptonshire 2’s, after a break Northants took on Warwickshire and enjoyed some probing attacks only to be caught on the break again by some rapid forwards, Jay was stopping many shots in between the sticks and Northants put the Warks keeper under pressure with powerful shots by Sam and silky skills from Ethan but to no avail. Northamptonshire 2’s 0-4 Warwickshire 2’s. The third game saw the boys put together a more defense performance and Ed, Hal and Freddy foiled many attacks and created opportunities down the wings for James and Ethan, a quick free hit from Sam opened up the defense for Ethan who with the goal in sight slipped the ball through a defender’s legs for Michael to slide the ball under the advancing GK. (Pay up Dad!), Worcs 1 5-1 North 2. The boys saved the best for the last game regularly opening up the Warks defense with Sam entering the D several times with the final ball not finding a pink shirt, Ethan rediscovered his marksmans skills to power a shot into the side netting, Warks retaliated with their own wonder goal as a head height pass was deflected over Jay into the top of the net. Jay was commanding his own D blocking shots all round the goal area until a Warks forward noticed his height and skillfuly lobbed him for a tap in, The best action of the day was Ethan’s mazy run through two defenders to dummy the GK to make sure the day ended on a high. North 2’s 2-6 Warks 1’s
Much was learnt and man of the day was Jay in goal voted by the players.
Opposite to Team 2, Team 1 had their best game first. Showing some great team work, excellent defence and work rate the team held out for a 2-1 win against a strong Worcestershire1 side. Dino in goal made some excellent reaction saves to keep us in the game with Ewan and Joe scoring some very well worked goals, Hamish a constant thorn in the oppositions side and Dickon and Will very solid in defence. Final score: Worcesterhire1 1 – 2 Northants1
Things unfortunately didn’t continue in that vein though with their next opponents Warwickshire1. With some very strong players Northants1 seemed to be caught napping by their quality and they were 3 goals up in no time. Northants composed themselves but despite some great defence by Dickon, Will and Dino a few more goals were conceded. However, if Warwickshire hadn’t had an exceptional player with a very good shot the scoreline would have been very different. Final score: Northants1 0 – 7 Warwickshire1
After the boys had picked themselves up from the big defeat in the previous game they started well against Worcestershire2 and worked hard. It was one of those days when the few chances they got to score just would not come off with Ewan going close a few times including hitting the post. Some good play by the Worcestershire players showcased some very good basic skills including some amazing backhand shots which caught Dino off guard on a couple of occasions. Despite Hamish making some great runs and winning a few corners Northants failed to score. Final score: Northants2 0 – 5 Worcestershire2
The last game was against Warwickshire2 and despite the previous two games the boys were still up for a battle which was great to see. Martin and Charlie in particular put some great work in. With some better team play and Ewan and Hamish making some good runs with the ball through their defence it showed that the boys have got the ability to compete at this level but unfortunately it was not done consistently enough. The end result was another loss but the scoreline didn’t really reflect how well we played. Final score: Northants1 0 – 5 Warwickshire2