The final pre-season friendly saw Ramsbury FC U15s play Ramsbury FC U14s in an end to end entertaining match and with a narrow 4-3 win to the U15s. The match was played on the 3/4 pitch and over 4 x 15 minutes. The U15s team was: Theo/Oscar (U14s) in goal, Alex, Josh, Barney and Hayden in defence, Noah, Max, Ben B, Byron and John in midfield and Ben P (Captain) as striker.
The U14s team undoubtedly played the better football with slick quick passing and were much eager to win the ball – something the U15s need to work on! The U15s, missing a number of players, had a significant number of new players and borrowed a goalkeeper for the game from the U14s as Ben B needed more outfield playing time. After a frantic 10 minutes where the U14s dominated play, the ball fell nicely to John after good work in midfield by Noah and John calmly slotted it in to go 1-0 up. Max scored a thunderbolt of a goal 10 minutes later as the U15s got more into the game to go 2-0 up and Josh and Alex made a number of important clearances to keep it 2-0 at half time.
Geoff made a few positional changes in the second half which took the U15s far too long to adjust too and some indecision in defence (again) gifted the U14s a goal to make it 2-1. Fortunately, the best play of the game saw Josh pass out of defence to Noah who passed a superb pass through to John for him to score his second and make it 3-1. The U15s then scored another neat goal by Ben P after some good midfield work by Byron, Max and Noah to make it 4-1. However, further positional changes by Geoff resulted in the U15s in disarray as they failed to adjust and were calamitous in defence and left too much space in the centre of midfield. The U14s exploited this with a very well taken second goal and followed it very quickly with a third to make it 4-3. The U14s ended the game very strongly and could have equalised as the U15s flagged and could not get organised – again something we need to work on.
In the end it was a narrow 4-3 win with our new signings Barney and Hayden getting valuable game time and some very good performances by Alex, Josh and Noah and great goals by John and Ben and Max. In sum, a lot to do but more positives than negatives as we start the season next Sunday with a HOME game versus Purton FC U15s.
Jon
