Round 5 - Knox UTD

I get really annoyed when people say one thing and then do the complete opposite. Such was the case today at Knox United, the Ref stating quite clearly before the match that he would not call Off-Side unless a player was camping in the goal mouth. Hence when he called Michael Off-Side (he was probably a body width in front of the last defender) you can imagine my frustration and to top it off I copped a mouthful of sarcasm from Knox's Coach. How quickly they forget what environment they will endure at our next meeting !

Now that I have got that off my chest, it was fair to say that Knox managed to keep the pressure on our lads during the first half. We did control the majority of the play, however we were not really playing our usual style and we were rushing our passes instead of slowing the game down and dictating the flow of the game.

Knox relied too much on one player who camped on our last defender all day. Any through balls that managed to get to him were quickly cancelled out by great defensive play. Aaron, Declan, Hamish and Jordy all combining to work the ball out of danger areas. No score at the halftime break, however I reckon the Knox Coach fancied his chances.

Clifton and Dave gave the lads some words of wisdom during the break and encouraged the boys to relax on the ball and control it with a good first touch. We were clearly the more dominant and skillful side, so we needed to play to our strengths and take the early initiative in the 2nd half.

The boys listened to the halftime advice and our midfielders started to knock the ball around very nicely. Jesse and Nick were winning the 50/50 balls and they had great support from Kosi and Dylan on the wings. Meanwhile Aaron (D), Charlie and Michael were causing the Knox defenders a lot of problems

2 well constructed goals were our reward in the 2nd half, with Jesse finishing both chances. However the work that went into creating the goals was fantastic and this was evident by the way that the boys celebrated after each conversion. As parents we are lucky to witness such wonderful passages of play, especially considering most of the lads are still only 9 years old.

Marcel once again kept a clean sheet and he made the right choices when Knox had a couple of late chances in the game. Next week we meet Monash at home and hopefully they bring down their best squad. Last year we had some great matches against Monash and the boys always look forward to a tough contest.