The third fixture of the Under 8's season saw them take on Burton Leonard Bullets in an away match. When we arrived the opposition coach informed us that they we would be playing two different teams (each made up of Year 3's and 4's) so we knew that it would be a difficult morning.
The first match started with some end to end football and yet again, the defensive duo of Jack Howells and Ennis Mackensie kept the opposition at bay. However, a speculative shot from a cleared corner flew into the net to give Burton the lead. Scotton nearly hit back straight away when a determined run from Freddie Dooley ended with his shot just missing the post. The older players in Burton Leonard's team started to dominate the midfield and they were able to score a couple more goals in the first half.
After the break Scotton started to play some neat football - they were passing, moving and even starting to organise themselves although their tackling left a bit to be desired at times! Jacob Cardani was kept very busy in goal and was really unlucky when, after making a great save, the ball bounced in off his head! Jonny Haase was combining well with our midfield and kept putting the Burton Leonard defence under pressure and he should have been rewarded with a penalty when a defender chopped him down after Jonny's fancy back heel had put him clean through.
Final score 5-0.
The second match saw Scotton face a different team and keeper Jacob Kavanagh was involved straight away making a couple of solid saves until he was beaten by a shot that went in off the cross bar. The opposition were playing a strange formation of 3 forwards and 3 defenders which meant that when they attacked, our defence were stretched to say the least. Harry Dawson was trying to marshall the troops and made some great tackles to deny them a shot on goal whilst Sam Hutchinson looked to help strengthen the defence and made some great tackles. However, the pressure of the three forwards eventually told when they scored their second goal.
The second half saw a strong display from Scotton and a great through ball from Tom Jenner ended up with Jonny Haase firing our first goal of the day. Further pressure could have resulted in an equaliser when Ben Rosie had his shot saved by the keeper.
Harry Dawson kept battling and his strong display would go onto earn him the man of the match award. At this point the ladss began to tire and the fresher opposition took advantage of this to score two late goals which made the final score of 4-1 sound alot worse than it was!
Credit to all the squad for their determination and battling spirit
