Horbury Town FC 1 – 3 Pontefract Collieries FC Development
Firstly, thank you to Horbury Town for hosting the game. They are a good young team who will have a successful season and have a bright future ahead of them.
First Half- We started slowly conceding possession regularly in the midfield and final third of the pitch, by not being patient enough in our build up play and trying to be too forceful with our forward passes. This is something we expected early in the game, as this young group of players have only had three training sessions together and this was their first preseason match.
We slowly grew into the game, and we started to move the ball quicker, with more confidence and we created multiple half chances. Charlie Clegg created a half chance for himself and curled a shot over the Horbury keeper only for the shot to hit the post. Horbury opened the scoring with a run against play, the Ponte defence was caught out of balance and the striker had an easy tap in. Josh Wright made a couple of particularly good saves to keep it at 1-0.
Half Time: Horbury Town FC 1-0 Pontefract Collieries FC Development.
Second Half- We started more aggressively in the way we pressed the opposition when out of possession and the speed of our transitions was much improved. The lads really stepped up the tempo of the game and were more patient in our build up play giving us better control, we started to break the lines more intelligently and we started creating more in the final third.
We soon got our reward, two goals from Charlie Clegg and an own goal from a great cross from Ben Hopkinson saw us win our inaugural match. We made lots of changes throughout the game to give everyone a good run out.
The win is a great start for the lads, it will boost confidence, and team moral but it is not just about winning, we have a young squad, and we need to learn who can play open age football from this group of talented players. Not one player looked out of place, and they all did themselves proud.We still have 4 / 5 talented players to come into the squad from our U19’s and our U23’s, this will add even more talent and more importantly give us more options and depth for the upcoming season. This project is an extremely exciting one and one I am proud to be a part of!
Man of the Match: Charlie Clegg.