U12 National 8 a side

Another Sunday, another tournament, but unfortunately, after the excitement of last weekend, there was no trophy to take home today. In my own mind a semi final place was the very least we were aiming for today. There are three or four good sides at this age group and any one of them is capable of winning a short tournament like this - a bit of luck, and some momentum counts for a lot.

We started really well with a great 5-3 victory over a tough Rochdale team, and then followed this with a 6-2 win over Spencer. Meanwhile Wilmslow were doing us all a favour with a huge win over Rochdale that effectively put them out of the tournament before lunchtime. We then beat Wilmslow 2-1 to win the group with a game to spare, before we gave the whole squad a go in the final game, winning 4-3 against Wacs.
So far so good – we’d made the semi final. We had played some nice lacrosse at times, and had fought hard for the wins but without really playing at our fluent best. Matthew Stewart in goal was probably the stand out performer up to this point, which itself tells a tale.

Brooklands and Sheffield had qualified from pool 1, along with ourselves and Wilmslow from pool 2. The betting man would have probably gone for a Timperley / Sheffield final, but he’d have lost all his money. We lost 1-4 to Brooklands, going behind early on and never managing to get back into the game, whilst Wilmslow produced another upset by overcoming the previously unbeaten Sheffield in overtime. Wilmslow followed this up by beating Brooklands 1-0 to take the tournament.

We must remember that 8 and 6 a side games can be won and lost in a very short space of time and often there is no time to respond - we will win some and we will lose some over the coming years. I firmly believe that this current team is better suited to 10 a side, which is where the main prizes are - the main target for the season was always the Onondaga Cup. We have a big semi final this coming weekend against Cheadle which, if we turn up in the right frame of mind, we are more than capable of winning.

Thanks to all the parents for taking the time to travel to Malvern to support their boys. It is meant to be a lacrosse festival and I think that from that point of view, we all had a good day at a great location with some superb weather.