Blackpool
25/26 February 2017
Year 2000 and Younger
Results
South East 7 Ireland 4
This was one of a very few occasions where a team you coach immediately go out and do what you envisaged, and then asked them to. By the time Ireland had adjusted to our way of playing it was too late for them. Scarlett contained their pit player, and they were reduced to long shots. Historically Ireland have found it difficult to cope with a certain kind counter of attack, which came in the form of Lily and Anashe.
Goals, Lily 4, Scarlett 2, Sarah.
Majors, Anashe, Lily, JessH, Sarah, Scarlett.
South East 5 London 5
We did everything right at the beginning of this match, bar scoring enough goals. When the refereeing is inadequate, as it was, these things can catch up with you, and they nearly did. Three times London were not punished for throwing the ball away after they had been timed out, at least three times, London players were not majored for putting their arms up and not retreating as soon as we were awarded a 5m foul these alone = 2 minutes of man up play we were denied. To compound this we got a couple of questionable majors against us, in composite we found ourselves 4-5 down, and with a few seconds left we got the ball back and I called a time out. We formed a shield for Lily, and she beat the London keeper and two defenders on the line, from 16 metres. The whole Palatine Centre erupted, and rightly so. So many times past we have had the worst of these occasions, not this time. London’s results in other games indicate that refereeing standards were a serious factor in this one.
The delegate chose not to quibble when I pointed these things out.
Goals – Lily 3, Anashe, Scarlett.
Majors – Maddie, Scarlett 2.
South East 1 North West A 12
Knowing we faced an NWA team loaded with GB juniors, I decided that we would concentrate on keeping the number of times they got behind our defence to a minimum, and keeping the score down. This worked in spells, as I tried to get the team to play slow, slow, quick, quick, slow in possession, and ensure we kept enough players back. It worked in spells, and not too badly for a first attempt, although I felt Ireland did a better job of it than us when they played NWA.
Goals – Lily
Majors – Anashe, Scarlett 2.
South East 7 Wales 5
With Scarlett unable to play on Sunday, Sarah moved to centre back. Losing a key player was a concern against a Welsh team that contained several dangerous players. Sarah did an excellent job on the Welsh pit player, and this was the key to us having just that bit extra to see us through to a semi-final.
Goals – Lily 5, Anashe 2
Majors, Lily, Ellie, Sarah 2.
South East 1 South West 12
We found ourselves once again up against a team loaded with GB juniors, realistically it was a case of minimising the goals against, and preparing ourselves for a third place match, by means of the way we wanted to play, and conserving our key resources.
Goals – Lily
Majors – Ellie 2, Sarah 2, Lily, Hannah, Alice
South East 5 North West B 4
As on a number of previous occasions, we found ourselves playing NWB for third place. They were a young team, well drilled and coached, who had got this far simply by playing the percentages, finding the weaknesses of, and making less mistakes than the other teams in their group that included more individually dangerous players – Scotland, East and North East.
Goals – Lily 4, Sarah.
Majors – Sarah.
So, we set up with a different starting 7 and a few other slight tweaks, and started strongly. Towards the end of this match they began to grasp and unravel some of the changes we made, but they consistently failed to shut down certain areas. At 4-4, and the recent momentum against us, again with only a few seconds on the clock, we got the ball back, set up on a time out, and Lily slammed home from the resulting foul on her, with a few seconds to spare.
Conclusions
Given the overall resources available to us, we over-performed, this is in some measure due to the extraordinary contribution of Lily Turner, it is also about the way in which we utilised her in a free role, for instance we rarely played to her until she had broken any drops applied on her. In defence Sarah Rogers and goalkeeper Elouise Robb, supplied backbone and sense, whilst Anashe offered a well-positioned threat down the left. We lose 6 full age players from the overall squad this year, a high number, with no emerging keeper in the years immediately below. In years 02/03 we face a player shortage. We should not underestimate the challenges that lie ahead.
Ewan Partridge 28/2/17