Stow Town 'B' 0 Woodbridge Town 16

Sunday 7th October 2007

Scorers: Taylor (6); Portaluri (4); Christie (4); Hayward; Thurlow Team: Emile Burgoyne; Ashley Archer; Khaled Abdel-Aziz; Ben Hopkins; Miles Kekwick; Harry Hayward; Sam Tripp; Aaron Thurlow; Robbie Stephenson; Laurence Portaluri; Marcus Taylor. Subs: Ewan Wickson; Caspar Church; Jack Christie. The boys put in without question their best performance of an already impressive start to the season against a team that were lying third in the league. The passing and movement was superb from the very start and it was heartening to see how they had listened to the pre-match team talk and maintained a width to their play that has in recent games not always been there. The finishing today from our forwards was excellent and all three boys, who played in attack at various stages in the match, showed great composure in front of goal. Marcus Taylor scored six, Laurence added four more to take his tally for the season to 21 and Jack Christie, having got on the score sheet last week again, scored four as well. Marcus’ first three goals were the perfect hat-trick – one with his left, one with his right and the third with his head. Harry Hayward and Aaron Thurlow added goals from midfield; Harry following in to pick up a rebound and Aaron with a powerful drive that the keeper did well to get a hand on the shot. The boys also hit the woodwork three times, had a goal disallowed for offside and Aaron, particularly put in a number of long range efforts that were only narrowly wide. However, today wasn’t just about the forwards, it was about the whole team. Sam Tripp and Aaron were outstanding in the middle of the park, winning the ball time and time again and playing some inch perfect passes to spread play wide and on occasions to release the forwards with a well-timed through ball. The boys, who played wide, initially Robbie Stephenson and Harry Hayward and then Caspar Church, stretched the opposition defence and created space for the forwards to work their magic. They also worked well with the full-backs and it was good to see on occasions the ball being passed back to retain possession. However the defence also played a very disciplined game and made it difficult for Stow to produce any threat on goal. The one shot from range was well covered by Emile Burgoyne in goal. Ben Hopkins was his usual commanding self and Khaled Abdel-Aziz won several tackles on half-way that enabled the midfield to set up more chances. Ashley Archer was again Mr Reliable at right back, Miles Kekwick grew in confidence as the game progressed and Ewan Wickson, who came on at left-back and then switched to right-back, provided excellent cover on a number of occasions late in the second-half. The team has played teams far worse than Stow Town and not performed as well this season. Today was a match where most things clicked and the boys didn’t let up from beginning to end. There are still areas to work on, particularly attacking corners and the timing of passes and runs to avoid attackers being called offside. After five games in the league, the boys have maximum points and scored over 50 goals while conceding six. There have been two clean sheets in the process. All 22 boys in the squad have played in a least one of these matches and twelve boys have got onto the score sheet. We hope that all boys feel part of this success. It is not easy juggling the team to achieve this, particularly as there are a number of positions where we don’t have a great deal of depth but the plan is to continue with this approach as we move towards Christmas.