Another warm and sunny day at Kettering North Park for our first game on the bigger pitches. We hadn’t played the Incas in the League before as our game last
season had been postponed, and with ‘Cole the Goal’ not playing today it was a difficult game to predict!!
Tom bravely stepped up for goal keeping duties in the first half and the plan was to protect our goal in the early stages with a defensive midfield, Dylan playing
upfront and Jacob just behind him.
The Incas kicked off and we opted to play uphill in the first half. Dylan quickly won the ball, broke left and scored within the first few seconds on his birthday! 0-1
The Incas looked quite good on the break, passing and linking up well but William and Sam managed to prevent any clear shots in the early exchanges.
Dylan had a shot go wide and another saved before Ollie also had a shot saved. The Incas began taking advantage of the slope and had two clear cut chances go just
wide before Tom took a great drop kick upfield to find Ollie in space. Ollie took his time and placed the ball sweetly into the back of the net: 0-2 after 14 minutes.
The Incas kept our defence busy and Sam, Nathan and William put in some great tackles.
Charlie was making his League debut and linked up well with Dylan, Jacob and Ollie with some nice passes. Just on half time Jacob got the ball on the edge of the
area and though his shot was blocked he was first to the rebound and made no mistake second time round: 0-3
Half Time.
Dylan went in goal for the second half (he wanted to!!!!) and the defence had a more solid look with Tom alongside William, allowing Sam an opportunity to push
forward.
Apart from a couple of breaks that Dylan and the defence dealt with comfortably the Incas were now defending in numbers which made for a busy penalty area.
Nathan and Jacob had half chances saved and Sam and Charlie had shots go wide.
12 minutes into the half and Charlie received a good pass from Sam and scored from the edge of the box with a good shot: 0-4
Ollie then swapped with Dylan to take up goalkeeping duties and was called into action straight away. Ollie’s drop kick found Sam on half way and with a bit of
space he brought the ball forward into the busy penalty area. With the ball glued to his feet Sam scythed through the Inca defence and scored cheekily from close
range: 0-5
Sam and Jacob were passing well in midfield with Nathan putting in some great covering tackles. William and Tom were massive at the back and made some great
clearances. Charlie was finding his feet and getting used to the pace of the game and the Wolves were now looking very comfortable. Dylan got his deserved second
following a powerful run and a great shot into the top corner with just minutes remaining: 0-6
The Incas won a corner in the dying minutes and with no one on the front post the in-swinging corner skidded through Ollie’s hands and some how found the back
of the net: 1-6.
Unfortunate not to keep the clean sheet and unlucky for Ollie, however a deserved goal for the Incas who played a lot better than the score line suggested and were
quite unlucky with a number of chances just going wide.
Not our best performance by a long way but with Cole out the boys did a very good job playing out of position and Charlie did well on his debut.
Five different goal scorers was pleasing too. A couple of tough games coming up now so we need to work on quicker and more accurate passing in the final third.
