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Kelso U16 Boys find goals hard to come by against Grange
It’s harder than you think to stick the ball in the back of the net!
Our latest U16 Boys fixture saw us travel back up the road to Edinburgh to play Grange at St. George’s School in Edinburgh. We lost to Grange 6-0 in our opening Scottish Club Cup game in Glasgow the other week so we were hoping for a closer game against their Development League side.
The first quarter got off to a good start with both teams seeing plenty of the ball but neither side really taking control. Grange took the initiative not long into the game and broke quickly from a turnover and fired the ball home to go one up. And whilst we had a number of opportunities to level, the score remained 1-0 to Grange at the first break.
The second quarter saw us move the ball around nicely, especially down the channels, and resulted in numerous chances in the second quarter, including several penalty corners. However we couldn’t convert and Grange again hit us on the break with a strong run from their centre mid who found the bottom corner to take Grange into halftime two goals to the good.
The third quarter followed a similar pattern to the second, where we had opportunities to put the ball in the back of the net, both in open play and penalty corners but just couldn’t find the finishing touch. This would come back to haunt us as their centre mid took the opportunity to put Grange 3-0 up with an excellent baseline run and near post finish.
The scoreline was not reflective of the game and a rallying team talk by the players in the final break ensured we started the fourth quarter with the ambition to score. Countless more opportunities and penalty corners came and went until Chris Alton picked up the ball from a flowing move in the middle of pitch, beat a handful of Grange defenders in the D and put the ball past their keeper. It was a little too late in the game to even up the scoreline even with a hatful of more chances, so the game ended with Grange coming out on top winning 3-1.
At the final whistle both sets of coaches felt the scoreline wasn’t reflective of the game and that a draw would have been a fair result. Plenty of positives to take from the game and finishing is high on the list for the forthcoming block of training!
Let’s see if we can convert more goals at our next fixture this Sunday (16 November) when we entertain Watsonians at Kelso High School.
KHC U16 Boys Team vs Grange: C. Alton; M. Banks (GK); M. Banks; R. Fleming; F. Hardie; A. Little; J. Moir; R. Patterson; F. Pennington; A. Pollhammer; C. Quinn; A. Scott; M. Whiteside; J. Wilson (Capt.).