Pegasus Youth Warriors - 23.02.13

As of lunchtime, February 23^rd, Sherwood are ‘top of the league’ with a 4 point cushion. However, the day started nervously with the prospect of Connor being in gaol for the first time (ever) against a team which has been getting good results. Patrick gave Connor a few tips about positioning, handling and when to come out from his area.

Then Sherwood got their first piece of luck. Neil got a phone call to say that Pegasus could only muster 9 players, presumably due to half-term holidays.  League rules say that the match has to go ahead and so it was up to Sherwood not to squander the advantage.

They didn’t. The first half was tight. Pegasus played a well-organised system which, while it didn’t lead to many attacks, meant that most of the game was played in mid-field (which kept Michael very busy).  The Pegasus keeper was on good form, managing to stop a series of shots from Kel, Tyler, Bradley, Jordan….. It was Captain Tyler (doing a fab job organising the team), who banged the first ball into the bottom corner of the goal.  But at half-time Sherwood’s lead was a slender 1-0. We were hoping that Pegasus would begin to tire.

In the second half Sherwood brought on their new signing, Buba, who was given a mid-field role. With his first touch of the ball, Buba made a superb pass to Kel who upped the score to 2-0. Pegasus battled on and had numerous attempts to break through our defence: Ethan, Thomas, Callum and Ryan. Ryan produced the ‘Man of the Match’ performance which meant that Connor didn’t have to fend off many major strikes.

The last quarter of the match got more and more exciting. Pegasus did start to tire and inevitably became frustrated as they couldn’t mark everyone they needed to. Bradley seemed to turn into a human dynamo, taking every opportunity to strike and either hitting the bar or curling the ball just round the outside of the post.  He did manage a superb assist to Kel which resulted in goal number 3.  It reached a point when everyone was having a go on goal – top marks to the Pegasus keeper who had a fantastic match. Thomas briefly abandoned the defence with a superb run down the wing which could, but didn’t produce the goal of the match. This however was reserved for our birthday boy, Bradley, who finally got his aim right to secure the final goal of the match and a convincing win for Sherwood.

It really was an excellent match. Everyone gave it their all. But from many stand out performances must be mentioned Buba in mid-field, Connor in goal, Bradley up front, Tyler everywhere, and of course Ryan in defence.

There’s no room for complacency. We play Pegasus at home in 2 weeks time – we won’t have the adva