Saints on song

Audlem Saints U10s play in two league competitions, a Pre-Christmas League & a Post-Christmas league. They finished joint 2nd in the former (playoff on 23rd January) and the latter kicked off on Sunday.

The opponents were newly promoted Alsager Town Bears who had run away with the Division 2 title pre-Christmas. Conditions were cold and very, very windy. One of the vagaries of junior football is that they play 3 thirds rather than 2 halves. That doesn't usually matter but in windy conditions like we had on Sunday it means that one team plays two thirds "with the wind". That luxury fell to Alsager.

Batttling against the wind in the first period, Audlem did the right thing in keeping the ball on the deck and making simple passes out of defence. They did well to maintain a clean sheet and create a few chances for themselves.

In the second period (now "with the wind") they continued to play crisp, passing football and they were rewarded. Three great team moves were clinically finished and an unfortunate own goal gave Audlem Saints a 4-0 lead. The third period saw Audlem dominate possession and restrict Alsager to just a couple of half chances. Saints added another well worked goal to run out comfortable 5-0 winners.

The fifth goal hopefully showed the boys just what can be achieved with simple passing and running. They moved the ball from one penalty area to the other with five quick passes and rounded off with a simple tap past the stranded keeper. This was a very good performance in difficult conditions.

Next week Audlem play Bocca Juniors, the team that won the league pre Christmas after being runners up to Audlem in the three competitions before that...should be a good one!

Match report by David Parry

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