Date	Sunday 3rd November 2013
Match	Comberton v Royston Town Youth
Competition	Cambridge & District Colts League U16 Div A
Result	Drew 1-1
Royston Scorers	Richard

A short trip to Eversden to play Comberton on a windy day not ideal for football but the surface was excellent so we looked forward to the challenge ahead. We were only missing Sam but we still had some injury worries over Alasdair, Bradley and AJ, Alasdair and Bradley would start but AJ was still not fit enough.

 

We spoke about good communication and not to panic when we had possession and not to force things and we also wanted them to drive forward with the ball when they had the opportunity. We asked them to do the simple thing in our third of the pitch and to remain positive.

 

We won the toss and turned round so we would be defending the slight hill with the wind in our faces.

 

Neither side took control in the first twenty minutes but for me we were trying to be to clever in our own third and the chances Comberton created were down to our bad decision making and some silly needless fouls. The more the half went on the more we started to have more of the play, Jack O was finding lots of space out on the left and he had our best two chances one of which brought an excellent save from the home keeper. Rhys was a threat from wide areas and just before half time he again picked the ball out wide beat his player the keeper came out and he found Richard with a great pass, Richard who had made a great run had to sort his feet out before poking the ball in from close range and making sure it beat the player on the line. This was the last real action of the first half and when the ref blow his whistle we went in one up.

 

We had improved the more the game went on but I was more concerned with the first twenty minutes when we at times were naive with our defending and decision making and when we had the ball we did not use it intelligently trying to beat players when a simple pass was on. We drummed it in to them that this game was not won and we needed to improve in all aspects of our play.AJ would come on in midfield and Richard would play further forward.

 

Comberton started much the stronger in the second half and we were on the back foot and we seemed to lose our shape. We were losing the ball in midfield to easily and in bad positions. With fifteen minutes gone in the second half Comberton won a corner, the delivery was excellent and there player wanted it more than us and his header went in for a deserved equaliser. We now needed a reaction and to be honest it never really came, we were seeing more of the ball and on one occasion Bradley went in with the keeper for a 50/50 challenge but inured himself in the process so had to come off but we never seemed to get a clear chance on goal.Comberton always looked dangerous going forward and with ten minutes left they hit the out side of the post from a free kick and missed another good chance when the ball went just wide. We had one more throw at the dice but failed to hit the target and the ref soon after brought the game to a close with the scores level.

 

I have no complaints about the score and take nothing away from Comberton who passed the ball as well as anyone we have played this season but this was a real disappointing performance from us where we did not get any where near the levels we are capable of, they were very quite in the dressing room afterwards which is always a sign to me that they were also disappointed with there showing today.

 

This league has real strength in depth that’s why we joined it to test ourselves week in week out, I have no doubt this group will rise to the challenge and get it right the attitude and commitment in training is always spot on and there is no lack of confidence in this group on the training ground, we just need to stick together cut out some silly mistakes and I know we will turn the corner and produce the performances we all know they are all capable of.