KENSINGTON DRAGONS U13s 9 V 4 BRUNSWICK
The sun shone on the freshly mown pitch at St. Mark’s Park as the under 13s resumed their league campaign after last week’s cup heroics.
The visitors, Brunswick, had arrived with just 10 players so were a man down from the kick off. But that didn’t stop them taking the lead within the opening 2 minutes. The Dragons are proving to be generous hosts at home this season, allowing their guests to take the lead in all of their matches thus far. Maybe they expected to walk away with it with the advantage of the extra player but they were too eager to impress and in too much of a hurry to stream forward and attack the opposing goal, rather than building slowly and letting their numerical advantage count. The coach made an early substitution, introducing Joe into midfield and he immediately made a difference, setting up a goal for Enrique, now in his preferred position as striker having spent the whole of last season in goal. Growing in confidence, Halvdan continued his good work in midfield and Sidney unleashed his rifle of a right foot, sending a shot whistling just over the bar. Enrique put an early claim in for miss of the season before Joe netted from an accurate free kick from Felix’s trusty right boot. It wasn’t long before Enrique made amends for his earlier howler by claiming his second of the match and the Dragons looked to be cruising. However, some calamitous defending with an inability to clear the ball allowed the visitors back into the game. Just before the break Rudi calmly finished to make it 4-2 at the interval.
Early in the second half the game had to be stopped when a rasping shot from Joe left the Brunswick keeper poleaxed after he chose the highly unorthodox method of saving it with his face. Aziz came close with a lovely curling shot, but the visitors capitalized on more indecisive defending to pull two more goals back and make it 5-4 when we really should have been home and hosed. The 10 men had fought bravely but the Dragons were about to make their extra player and strength from the bench count. Karim doubled his tally for the season with a commanding header from a corner. Joe helped himself to his second and Enrique acrobatically completed his hat trick. The Dragons were now oozing confidence. Their passing was short and crisp and they were carving open their tiring opposition at will. There was even time for Enrique to claim his fourth, forcing the ball home from what seemed like an impossible angle.
So the Dragons ran out comfortable winners in the end, 9 to 4, almost registering a ‘Dolly Parton’ (9 to 5). And although there were some worrying recurrent lapses in concentration at the back, this was a ruthless attacking performance that was thoroughly entertaining to watch.