U16s beat H.Mersey 9-3

Defence lays the foundation for a solid victory in Costa del Mersey.

Beautiful sunny morning for the spectators, while a blinding sun for the players, who struggled to adjust to the low sun with lots of dropped/misplaced passes resulting in only 4 goals in the first half.

Stellor were able to control midfield more this week and had a decent amount of posession against a well organised team who don't give soft goals away. Eddie finally broke the deadlock at the end of Q1 to give us a 1-0 lead with Q2 being a replica of decent posession but not enough quick movement or accurate final ball. Despite this Ben and Tom got on the scoresheet with a Mersey reply to give a 3-1 half time lead.

Defensively we played better this week although we still gave Mersey a few too many free shooting chances, some they missed and some required smart saves from Will who was back to his best in goal today. Q3 we extended the lead with another from Ben and then Sam as it ended 5-2, although we were overly wasteful with some neeedless long passes going astray too often and we looked strongest when we had Ben H and Josh running the ball out from defence to create fast breaks.

In Q4 the game got physical with a number of late checks and take outs and both teams had players off the park. This seemed to work in our favour and fire us up as we scored 4 unanswered goals through Luke, Ashley, Ben's 3rd and Sam before a late Mersey consolation.

Overall, a decent performance but unless we cut out the sloppiness and carry out the moves from training up front, we won't beat the best this season which we have the potential to do.

Goals: Ben T (3), Sam (2), Ashley, Eddie, Tom and Luke. Saves: Will 10 plus