MATCH REPORT UNDER 9A v CHERRY ORCHARD

U9A SAT WIN 5-0 AWAY TO CHERRY ORCHARD

Our U9A Saturday side travelled out to Ballyfermot on Saturday ready for a tough encounter
against Cherry Orchard having worked very hard in training this week to prepare for the game. We
arrived early and the boys were very focused on the job ahead. They went into the game determined
to maintain their unbeaten run to date this season with 10 wins and 2 draws behind them – one of
which was our home game against the Orchard earlier in the season.

The game started with us tipping off and  forty seconds later the Orchard keeper was taking the ball out of his net from our first attack thanks to a super finish from Ryan, our front pair of Deiric and Ryan were working very hard together backed up by a very strong midfield of Ross, Jake with David and Brian on the wings, I amconvinced these four eat concrete blocks for breakfast as they showed great strength in holding off anything the orchard had to offer. In defence we had Luke and Josh backed up by our ever
reliable keeper Jack and to make life worse for the orchard we had the classy Keith and Jack K on
the bench waiting to be released on them.

After getting off to such a good start the lads with their heads up really applied the pressure and with only 4 mins gone Deiric slotted home with a cool finish to make it 2 nil , then to drive home our advantage we stole the ball from the Orchard tip-off and kept possession – then from Deiric’s shot the keeper could only parry the ball and the incoming defender turned the rebound into his own net – 3 nil and just 6 minutes gone

 The orchard were shell shocked and could not get into their stride and our lads were in no mood to concede any of the lead they had built up.
The lads up front constantly hassled and hurried the Orchard defence causing them to lose
possession regularly therby forcing them to kick long whenever in possession, with the tough tackles
from Jake and Ross in the middle of the park and David and Brian working hard to support the front
men when needed and working back to help win back the ball whenever they had to we looked
comfortable and were able to control the game with good possession play and strong tackling all
over the field. On the few occassions that they managed to get by the midfield they found
themselves running into a brick wall of Luke and Josh who were both superb and managed to
prevent the Cherry Orchard getting a shot of any meaning on our goal in the entire match. Our 4th goal came from an Orchard corner from which Josh won the ball and picked out a fantastic pass to release
Ryan from which he produced a bit of Messi magic – with 2 defenders to beat Ryan picked up the ball
a yard inside the Orchard half held off the defenders then in a 1 on 1 with the keeper waited for the
keeper to commit then calmly chipped the ball in over him in some style.

With our 2 subs dying to get on the pitch for some action the Orchard must of been delighted to see Jake and David come off but they soon realised that the 2 boys coming on were every bit as good as anyone on the pitch before them and if they had any doubt they realised what they were up against when Keith took no prisoners in his tackling and just like Jake before him spread some fantastic passes all over the
pitch. With Deiric now on the wing Jack K went up front and with his frightening pace caused
their defence real problems which they found hard to deal with. The other Jack in goal found himself
with little to do except the odd kick out when the Orchard were reduced to long range efforts that
went wide,  his distribution was top notch . Having made a couple of more subs to get all the boys
plenty of time on the field our last goal came with the last kick of the ball Josh realeased another
great pass into Keith in the center who in turned played an early pass up to Deiric who showed real
class in releasing the ball 1st time into the path of the on coming Jack K who with lightning pace out
ran the defence to slot a terriffic finish across the keeper – 5 nil. This was a terrific result and more
importantly a performance for the lads who are really working hard to improve week after week. They are also clever enough to know that football being  football that next week is a new game and
they must keep up the high standards they have set themselves.