This game saw the first outing for North Somerset u16 boys team and featured players as young as 11.

We went to Golden Hill to play against Westbury who have a youth academy roughly 5 times the size of ours and were concerned about the level that the league would be played at, however it only took a couple of minutes to realise that we would not be outclassed in this game. The work rate of our players really showed and our ability to play as a team shone through.

Whilst juniors have not always been the best at passing to players they think may have a lower ability, ours were absolutely bucking the trend with the choice of pass being made to the player in the best position. They also all remembered their coaching, that driving straight at goal every time wasn't the answer and moving the ball around to change the point of attack whilst keeping possession was an effective tactic.

Our academy players knew the ones in the Westbury side and made entertaining individual battles. Dan K and Corin C were bossing the defensive side of midfield knowing they had a strong defence behind them and with Josh A at the top of the midfield causing nightmares for the Westbury defence. Just to make calling advice difficult, Josh L and Josh W-C were the wide players, but their tenacity and strength in the tackle helped to keep Westbury pinned back. Our forwards were mainly younger, but their movement off the ball created gaps for midfield to come through or great opportunities to receive in space. The strength of our play in the first half meant that Alec T, who was only putting the keepers pads on for about the 4th time, only touched the ball twice in the first half.

Westbury's keeper also helps to coach ours and is one of the top two in the age group for Avon, so we knew there was a stiff challenge, he made it very difficult and was kept busy throughout the first half with shots from several of our players.

The half time team talk was to do more of the same, keep the movement and determination. We carried on in this fashion, but unsurprisingly their halftime team talk probably had a little more to work on and they came out with a better marking strategy and made it harder for Josh A to have the same impact by putting two players on him, this did give Dan and Corin a little more space to dictate play in the centre and spread the play out. We had driving runs from Lewis W-P and James K out of defence almost the length of the pitch with Corin covering their roles as they did.

Alec had more to do in the second half, but was clearing any balls which were loose near to him with lots of vigour and ensuring it removed the threat. With Jake C in the centre of the back three keeping their centre forwards well marshalled. We continued to rain shots in on the Westbury keeper who was in excellent form repeatedly denying his cousin Josh A from getting anything past him. One movement in the D found Charlie T in an excellent position at the back post, but was unfortunate not to be able to turn in the cross. Sam H, Harry B and Tom V were all making moves and dragging the defence around the pitch. Tom V chasing back against a player so much taller that Coach Jon shouted at him to run through his legs showed how willing they all were to do everything they could.

Unfortunately the game was decided by two strong moves by Westbury late in the game, one being the only decisive passing move in our D, but it found a player free near the goal to gain the lead and then their only hard hit at goal in the game got the better of Alec and made it 2-0 final score.

We certainly had the majority of the game and played brilliant team hockey with half the team also in the u14 age group against a team of all 15 & 16 year olds. I couldn't be prouder of the effort and teamwork the lads put in and am now looking forward to the other games in the league with more anticipation!