Match report

Match report

With the rainclouds parting and the sun shining, every player and parent breathed a sigh of relief, this was going to be a fast-paced, frenetic competition between Woodside Red and Woodside Blue.

From the referee’s first whistle the game was on and Woodside Reds showed why they are sitting in the top half of the table.  The pace was cracking, and the Reds midfielders and strikers were turning the Woodside Blues defence inside out.

M.Burroughes and J.Lunnon were wresting for the ball in the middle whilst newcomer J.Mewett was stepping into the fray wherever he could, O.Boerth in right defence was shutting down attack from the wing. Against the run of play, W.Limbert managed to sweep the ball up the wing to M.Olsson who fed S.Cotton, who expertly put it past the keeper at close range for Blues’ first. The celebrations did not last long with yet another great attack by the Reds midfield and a great pass finding the Reds dangerman J.Constable, who easily slotted home Red’s equaliser after outrunning two Blues defenders – it was game on.

The first half was a constant flurry of breaks and missed opportunities from the Reds, with the blues being run off their feet and having to defend. Blues had a scare when a Reds player ran free and scored only for it to be ruled offside. Near the end of the half the Blues managed to counter attack and M.Davis managed to squeeze the ball into the back of the net in a goal mouth scramble and off of the Reds keeper A.Vassos.

The second half got under way with position changes from both sides, this was turning out to be a great tussle between the two Woodside Warriors teams and it could quite easily go either way. It took only a few minutes before D.Silvestri managed to use his height to cause problems from a Blues corner fed in by R.Sutton. The Reds keeper A.Vassos made a fantastic athletic first save only for D. Silvestri to poke in the goal. Like the first half the Reds came back with pressure and with a jigging run by R.Nambier he used the outside of the foot to put it past M.Olsson in goal for the Blues.

All of a sudden, the Blues were waking up to the power and speed of the Reds and started to find another gear, E.Moylan was now in the midfield role and was running hard everywhere and feeding goals upfront. In the space of 10 minutes the Blues managed to counter attack and put away three more goals one to S.Cotton and two to R.Sutton with R.Sutton smashing a lob from outside of the box to go into the top left-hand corner. With the game now seemingly out of reach for the Reds, they still kept attacking with man of the match W.Limbert being instrumental in holding their strikers away and feeding the ball up the pitch to either B.Bevan who had a couple of shots on goal after great assists from teammates, and to P.Thomas who was running the left wing and popping in the middle. It was on one of these runs that P.Thomas came very close to scoring her first goal, with every Blues parent willing the ball to find the net. Reds and Blues were evenly matched for this competition and though Blues ended up victorious both teams learnt something from each other today - what a great game of football to watch. Warriors Blue are wearing white shirts in attached photos.