The U12 lost to Knaresborough Celtic 5-0 in truly abysmal conditions on Saturday. The rain that fell all day on Friday continued through to Saturday morning and that meant that it was cold, wet and very muddy for both teams. Howeever, on the day, Knaresborough coped better than the Scorchers and the result was that Knaresborough took the points.
Scotton started slowly with chances being few and far between. Knaresborough created the better chances but some good goalkeeping from Sam and last ditch defending from Audrey and Steph meant that they only had one meaningful chance in their dominant first 10 minutes which their leading striker hit past Sam into the top corner, there was not much that Sam could do about it!
Scotton came into the game a little more with Jes replacing Steph to add some height at the back, Ella working hard across midfield and tracking back into defense and Emily, despite her injured ankle, creating some problems for Knaresborough's defence. That defence was outstanding however and despite the 5-0 scoreline I think that their central defender was their player of the match as she stifled every attack that Scotton created for the whole game.
As we started to get into our game we conceded a soft goal from a goal kick as we were caught napping and our injury worries increased as Chloe had to come off with a tight hamstring with Lowenna slotting well into midfield and Maddie moving up into attack to support Emily.
In the second half Audrey and Jes continued the hard work at the back with Maddie and Ella trying their hardest to help out the defense while at the same time create opportunities for the strikers. Emily had the best of these, putting one wide and one straight at the keeper with Chloe (who had come back on) also missing the best opportunity when one-on-one with the keeper.
Audrey and Jes were outstanding in defence but Audrey had to come off when she took a ball full in the face at full force. Very brave defending but it was very painful. Georgina replaced Audrey and unfortunately we then conceded what was the killer goal when the Knaresborough twisted and turned past the determined Georgina and finished the shot beautifully with her left foot. It was a good goal and the defenders did everything they could but we were just beaten by a great piece of skill.
Molly then came on to partner Georgina in defence and as usual she battled hard for the ball and made life difficult for the Knaresborough strikers. However as we pushed forward for a way back into the game with Ella increasingly playing closer to the front two, we found ourselves exposed at the back and conceded two late goals to make the score 5-0. This did not reflect the effort that we put in but Knaresborough were the better side and deserved their victory.
Overall a disappointing result as we know we can play better but the game was played in good spirit despite the conditions and we had lots of injuries to cope with so hopefully next time out we can put this behind us and look forward to the successful completion of the season.
