A difficult outing today at Landore in swirling wind and rain against a Bristol City team that was physically and technically stronger.
Our U18 held the score to 0-1 for some time, had a good chance to equalise early in the 2nd half, ultimately the visitors wore our youngsters down and finished the match on top with a convincing 4 goal win.
We looked vulnerable throughout to set pieces – pretty much anything directed into close proximity of our goal put us in danger. There seems a notable reluctance on the part of our young keepers to leave their line and today was no different. No one took responsibility at a corner on 31 minutes and centre half Campbell-Slowey converted the loose ball from close range.
The returning Sammi Henia-Kamau had gone close a couple of times earlier and left the game at half-time. His replacement Rohan Davies saw an attempt parried and Woodward was unable to get to the rebound.
The visitors gradually resumed control, we conceded a penalty on 67 minutes to a despairing challenge. Heads went down and we were a well beaten side by the close.
We started in a 4-2-3-1 formation, which placed a lot of responsibility on our middle duo, Jacob Cook and Harlan Perry. Both battled hard but got rather overwhelmed. Tom Searle performed determinedly at right back, Aimar Govea had some typical sorties down the left wing, but was less effective on being switched to join Davies in the middle. Seb Dabrowski had a decent comeback in the centre of an defence. U16 partner Brogan Popham coped resolutely with a persistent Bristol attack. That aside, something of a game to forget.
Line-up: Ewan Griffiths; Tom Searle, Brogan Popham, Seb Dabrowski (s – Jack Cooper 65m), Josh Pescatore; Harlan Perry (s – Cameron Llewellyn 74m)3, Jacob Cook; Thomas Woodward, Yori Griffith (s – Ramon Rees-Siso 50m), Aimar Govea; Sammi Henia-Kamau (s – Rohan Davies 46m). Unused sub: Tom Wright.
Scoring: Campbell-Slowey (0-1 31m) Hewlett (0-2 67m pen) Walker (0-3 82m) Bak (0-4 86m)