Evans inspires Sports to the Semi's

22/01/11 Saturday U12's Cup Underwood Villa 0 Hucknall Sports 3 Frosty conditions meant that this game was delayed by an hour as the venue was moved from Brinsley to Bestwood Village (Goosedale) and with both teams enduring a frustrating league campaign it was a chance to relax in this Cup Quarter-final match. The only change for Sports saw them rearrange their defensive line-up and deploy Dante Diriso at left-back in place of the holidaying Tom Eastwood. From the start it was clear that Sports had brought their confidence of the previous weeks with them and got the perfect start when Jacob Barlow bicycle-kicked his team into the lead when he latched onto a ball just inside the 6-yard box. Charlie Blatherwick's intelligent use of the ball saw him cutting the Villa defence apart with a great range of passes from his new position at the head of midfield and one such pass saw James Hallam's blistering run and shot narrowly miss the target at the far post. In defence Diriso showed his versatility by being able to both break-up play with great tackles and also setup attacks by driving his team forward. Villa did have a good spell of pressure midway through the half and might have punished Sports defence had it not been for Keeper Kal Orton who was alert to any dangers and quick off the mark. Sports finished the half pushing to extend the lead but had to settle for 1-0 as the whistle blew. Half Time: Underwood Villa 0 Hucknall Sports 1 For the second half Sports switched Ellis (Welsh Wizard) Evans into centre midfield where he made good use of the ball to release his team mates with a great range of passing. Buckly Gibson-Brown showed he had listened to the coaching instructions and proved a great threat on both the right and left wings. Evans vision set free Hallam who finished with the composure of someone twice his age to score after rounding the Underwood keeper. Centre-back Ryan Towle launched a thunderbolt strike from 30 yards after Villa cleared the ball from a corner but his shot narrowly missed the far post by inches. Then Towle started a 10-pass move which resulted in Oliver Bowley 'megging' the Villa defender with a weighted pass to setup Ellis Evans to round of his Man of the Match performance with a shot high into the top corner - the Sports fans went wild with appreciation and even drew applause from the neutrals for the skill of the football. Soon after the final whistle blew for a victory that saw Sports make the semi-final's of the Saturday U12 Cup and a home game against West Bridgford. Full Time: Underwood Villa 0 Hucknall Sports 3 There are so many good things to say about this performance, but the summary has to be that it was a great team performance. Strong when we needed to be strong and skilful also when creating a series of great moves. This set of boys have worked so hard get their season going and finally have started go see some rewards. Let's kick on now and take this type of performance into the League games. Man of the Match was almost impossible to chose today with great performances all around the pitch. Joe Newton was great in defence (again), Mitch Davies was awesome in midfield (again) and James Hallam a constant threat up front (again). However, for his terrific passing and wonderful goal the award goes to Ellis Evans - Well done Ell, great performance.