Ouch!

Deeside Pheonix Vs Flint Town United Juniors

No, thats not a typo. Much as we would like to believe that we held Deeside Pheonix to a 1-1 draw, it wasn't quite that close.

Following on from a 6-1 loss to Buckley and with a canceled match at Myndd Issa due to a waterlogged pitch we found ourselves facing another of the league's big hitters.

It was a battling game with us surrendering far too much space to a side that knew how to use it well. Our players put in their usual workmanlike performance with plenty of them willing to chase and run all day for the cause, but it wasn't enough. Superior positional play won the day for pheonix.

That's not to say it was all bad by a long way - a number of break away opportunities were well worked and we were unlucky not to score 3 or maybe 4. We showed enough passing play going forwards to give encouragement when we play some of the weaker teams in the league, but too many times we were caught with the the defence lying deep and tackles missed, and more than half of the pheonix goals came from uncleared ball in the box that was finally put in by Deeside rather than cleared by us. Basic marking left a lot to be desired too!

Special note must go to our goalkeeper who had a couple of misses but on the whole pulled off a number of good saves.

It was a baptism of fire for John, managing the team on his own for the first time with Mark skivving off on holiday for the weekend, but with all the parents firmly behind him and the lads no matter what. It's worth noting that the biggest cheer of the day was for our goal and the applause for our lads coming off the pitch after a hard morning was significantly louder than that for the victors.

If this game taught our team anything it should be that it's what you do when you don't have the ball that matters.

PS - the photographer turned up this week but forgot his camera! We really are going to have to have words with him!!