First home win for U15 South

A run of 5 games undefeated in the league is now starting to look like excellent form, as South despatched Edgware Tigers in their first home win of the season to go 3rd in the table, played out on pitch 6.

The weather was dry and warm (enough for October) for this 2pm KO on the biggest pitch available at Harvesters, which worked well for South with 15 players available for this game, verses the stretched Tigers with just 12, which was compounded for Tigers when they lost the toss allowing us to make them play uphill in the 2nd half.

The game kicked off and Edgware looked much more up for the challenge, with the Tigers edging the possession stats for the first 10 minutes but neither team where able to assert themselves or create any significant chances. Harvesters grew into the game and started to play with style through some nice passing football and chances started to come thick and fast. First Monty, then Archie had chances to open the scoring, with shots going into the keepers hands or wildly wide of the target, including an open goal after Charlie had done well to charge down a goalkeeper's cleanance.

28 minutes into the game the deadlock was almost broken, Max W put Ollie through and he hit a powerful shot curling away from the keeper towards the top corner, only for an excellent strong hand from the keeper to reach out and push the ball round the post at the last second. 2 minutes later, South won a free kick just right of centre 24 yards out, perfect for a left-footer and thankfully we have several of those! This time, Monty took the kick and took time to line up his shoot which curled nicely over the wall and into the top corner of the goal for 1-0. Just before half-time Max W played Ollie in again and this time he hit his shot low and hard giving the keeper no chance. 2-0, Half time.

Harvesters were now playing downhill in the 2nd half and with fresh legs from 4 subs, we were able to boss the game, with Edgware struggling to get out of their half and restricting them to counter-attacks. South however failed to capitalise on the ball possession and the slope advantage through poor finishing and some great goalkeeping from the Edgware number 1 and 10 minutes into the 2nd half, a breakaway chance for edgware resulted in a deflected shot finding its way past Harrison, game-on.

You could sense the change of momentum in the game, suddenly from having no possession, the Tigers found their roar and they were very much back in the game and started playing much better. Thankfully, Archie finally found his eye for goal again, this time the provider was Max W, sliding a pass through the inside right channel to set Archie up and he found the target from a narrow angle under the diving keeper, restoring the 2 goal advantage, 3-1. Further chances went begging for South and just as I hoped we wouldn't regret it, Edgware forced their way back into the game with an excellent 2nd goal setting us all on edge at 3-2 with 20 minutes to go.

The result was now resting very much on who would get the next goal. The answer came quickly, Max W danced round 2 defenders and the goalkeeper and walked the ball into the empty net. 4-2 and the Tiger's resurgence was over and the points were Harvesters.

Next up, it's a repeat of last season's trip to Alexander Park for the 1st round of the Junior league cup, hopefully without the game-stopping injury and the replay.