Davies Double helps salvage a point for Sports

U16's Saturday Division One Notts Youth League

Lowdham Colts 3 Hucknall Sports 3

27/9/14

Horrendous traffic in the Lowdham area due to the ‘World Ploughing Championships’ (really?) meant that this game was delayed by almost an hour. Adrian Evans stepped in to replace the official referee who was stuck in traffic himself.

Sports looked half asleep as the game started and were punished in the very first minute when a corner to the edge of the penalty area was expertly smashed home on the volley by Lowdham. Hucknall were understandably rattled and Lowdham’s confidence was sky high. Some 15 mins into the game the referee arrived and Ady took a well deserved rest. Colts drove forward again and a dangerous cross to the near post was turned into his own net by Sports centre-half Joe Newton. Then poor defending allowed Lowdham to go 3-0 when Sports keeper parried the ball away but his team mates could only stand and watch as the diminutive Lowdham winger tucked the ball home. The game was only 25mins old and Sports had their backs well and truly against the wall. The narrow pitch, continual flow of injuries and inevitable wasted time waiting for the ball to be retrieved from the stream meant that Sports frustration grew and grew. They simply couldn’t find a rhythm and started to look for a long-ball forward instead of sticking to their game plan. Finally, they got themselves into the game when good play from Adey Lang in midfield saw him slip in Jarrod Davies who side-footed the ball home to give his team hope of a second half come-back.

Half-Time: Lowdham Colts 3 Hucknall Sports 1

The message to Sports at half time was simply - “believe in your style of play and you will get rewarded”.

Thankfully the good football started to return for Hucknall. Jarrod and Mitch Davies gradually took a hold of the midfield. Patience on the ball and shorter passing also emerged and things looked a lot more promising. The back four got themselves organised and keeper Kal Orton was able to feed the ball out to his full backs on a more regular basis. Sports got their second goal when Jarrod Davies skilfully beat two opposition players in midfield and played a simple pass just behind James Hallam who produced a sublime back-heel back to Davies who made no mistake with a curled shot around the Keeper and into the far corner – a contender for goal of the season but Sports were not done yet. Now it was time for Sports to be on top but the equalising goal just wouldn’t come. Danny Darlow’s shot was well saved and efforts from Lang and Hallam were blocked. With less than 10mins remaining Hucknall had to throw caution to the wind and adopted a 3-4-3 formation with Ellis Evans moving into midfield and Tom Eastwood joining Hallam and Lang up front. This brought about the move of the game when Evans started a 20-pass move that saw Sports patiently move the ball from side to side before Jarrod Davies once again provided the final impetus to drive at the Lowdham defence and thread a lovely waited pass (straight out of Rues coaching manual) to Eastwood who took a touch and then belted the ball into the roof of the net.

If anyone looked odds on to win now it was Hucknall Sports but time got the better of them and in the end they had to settle for a draw.

Full-Time: Lowdham Colts 3 Hucknall Sports 3

The lead up to today’s game was far from ideal with many boys having to abandon their parents cars and walk from the outskirts of Lowdham to the ground in order to give this game any chance of starting. But Sports can’t use that as an excuse. The lesson HAS to be learnt that good, patient, controlled football is the only way forward and so it proved to be. Sports final goal was from the ‘top drawer’ and a managers dream

This was far from vintage Sports football but you have to applaud the team spirit and inner belief that brings your team back from 3-0 down to eventually draw 3-3.

Some good play from many today. Special mention to Ellis Evans for stepping in at an unaccustomed left-back position and making some tremendous passes to move his team forward, particularly in the second half. 

Jarrod Davies MOM

However, today’s winner of the Man of the Match award was Jarrod Davies. His play reminded us that he has many different dimensions to his game not just defending and his goals reminded us of our promotion campaign where he contributed so well – great job Jarrod, keep it up.

Finally, our best wishes for a speedy recovery go to Ronnie of Lowdham Colts who suffered a broken jaw during the game – get well soon.