Inter-County Reports
London/South-east Under 14 (1998 & Younger) Inter-county Tournament - Whitgift School, South Croydon Sun 18-Dec-11.
Sussex County entered a team in this under 14 competition which is the youngest of the three age groups and as a result often involves a number of youngsters who are making their debut for a county representative team. Having won this tournament last year we knew that we would have a tough task to retain the title with so many players moving out of the age group for this year. The squad selected was a combination of players from three clubs and included boys and girls with varying degrees of experience. These are the individual match reports.
Sussex 7, Kent 5. (H/T 4-4).
A satisfactory win against a well organised opposition and a strong second half performance secured the positive result.
With Ellis playing well at centre back, we always looked as though we could score goals. A few defensive lapses allowed Kent back into the match but Ben soon scored the goals to make the game safe and it was nice to see
Lara, Toby and Tom also on the score sheet. Scorers; - Ben 4, Lara 1, Toby 1, Tom Kane 1.
Sussex 7, Middlesex 6. (H/T 2-2)
Another close match against a talented Middlesex team who were helped by a number of "interesting" refereeing decisions.
We actually controlled large parts of the match but we missed a few chances when we probably could have scored and we were guilty of allowing the opposition a number of goals which we really should have avoided. Ben again scored a number of fine goals but Lara, Tom and Josh also found the back of the net. Scorers; - Ben 4, Lara 1, Josh 1, Tom Kane 1.
Sussex 1, Surrey 8. (H/T 0-6)
The final match against Surrey was a title decider because both teams went into the match unbeaten. Unfortunately we made a poor start and Surrey punished our defensive errors. Ben found it hard to get into the game as a result of being "man marked" and Surrey had obviously worked out where our main goal scoring threat would come from. The team should take a great deal of credit for a much improved performance in the second half of the match when we defended well and looked much more threatening in attack. Scorer; - Ben
Squad in full - Lara Partridge, Toby Underwood, Tom Kane, Mattie O'Dell (all Crawley SC), Abby-Louise Rocky, Ollie Oakley, Tom Collings (all Mid Sussex Marlins), Ben Curtis, Ellis Bubb, Ben Goddard (all Worthing SC).
Overall to finish as runners-up in this competition to a strong Surrey team was certainly no disgrace and all of the squad did well. Without a specialist goal-keeper Ollie Oakley took on the role in the first match and Mattie O'Dell played in this difficult position in the second and third games and both did well.
Finally, I would like to thank all the parents and friends who came along to support both this squad and the girls team who played in the Under 16 competition.
Kind regards,
Alastair.
London/South-east Under 16 (1996 & Younger) Inter-county Tournament - Whitgift School, South Croydon.
Squad
Matilda Coke – MSM
Fran Collings – MSM
Abi Rocky – MSM
Camilla Brandon – CSC
Lara Partridge – CSC
Karen Chan – WSC
Harleigh Goddard – WSC
Daisy Hazeldine – WSC
Gemma Coulson – WSC
We took a young squad into this tournament, containing only three full age players, we lost one other key player to illness on the day, which meant we had one or more of our three very inexperienced players in the water throughout. Additionally, Lara and Abi were both required to play substantial amounts of the intertwined U14 programme, because of their regular of
experience at that level, meaning that they had a very busy evening, which included two sets of back to back matches.
Due to Hants withdrawal, there were only two U16G matches.
Sussex 4, Kent 9
Kent fielded a strong team, containing mostly Y96/97 players, a number of whom play regularly for Invicta Ladies, and they got a nasty shock in the 1st half as our girls put in a gutsy performance that troubled the Kent defence on numerous occasions, Kent went in to half time an undeserved 4-3 up. Our lack of substitution options, combined with the absence of our strong right sided player, meant, unsurprisingly, that we couldn’t hold our performance level, as Kent unravelled us more down this side in the second half. Nevertheless, this was a strong performance from a team that did not contain “naturals” in several positions, everybody worked hard, with a full squad we might have pushed Kent close. Goals - Karen, Lara, Fran, Harleigh.
Sussex 8, Surrey 5
The Surrey player profile was similar to our own on paper, however, the notable improvement of Harleigh and Abi over the last year weighed the match in our favour. We quickly established a 4-0 lead, and had to give some players a break,
this allowed Surrey to get back in the match briefly, but we had too much for them. Particularly good to see were goals on debuts from Abi and Camilla. Camilla (Y99) being the baby of the team. Goals - Harleigh (3), Abi (2), Fran, Camilla, Karen
Ewan Partridge