Yardley started with a solid back four of Muhammed, Ubaydah, Owen and Jordan. This solid back line gauged the strength of the visitors early on and started to push up to exert pressure in the middle of the pitch. This was finely judged and executed extremely well and helped the team shape. Up front we welcomed back Sean who started his first game of the season. Sean combined well with Zach both keeping the defenders on their toes with their movement up front for the whole game.
We had a 14 youth squad of under 16’s and again fielded no adult players. The opposition again insisted on playing an adult even though they had to sub their youth players. The Stratford adult played it cautiously and wasn’t as intrusive as last week’s opponents, but still.
Our team produced a dogged performance, combatted for tackles and won possession well. On the flip side of that was we struggled to get the passing side of our game going. Last season the Badgers had a flow to it which we need to bring back soon. We have many new recruits and getting the team to click into place will take a few more games. We resorted to a few long ball “16’s” by our defenders. This by-passed the midfield of both teams, and got our strikers involved. A tactic which won us our only goal. Owen powered the ball to the striker and once collected in the “D” was struck well. Goal scorer please let the Coach know who you are please (I was sub rotating at the time)
My man of the match this week goes to Abdullah, a new recruit to Badger’s hockey from the Sunday training sessions. He was put into defence for long periods and made tackle after tackle. He moved to midfield and again put in a sterling performance. He was prepared to take on the older more technical opposition and 90% of the time won the ball.
Mahbubur Rahman, Ethan, Aeysha, Edan, and Barakah all had strong performances and their improvements are encouraging. Their confidence in midfield is growing with every game, helped by the constant support of the back four. A draw was a fair result as both teams were evenly matched.
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