BSYL Year 11: Foxes 1 - 1 Rockleaze, 10/09

The start of a new season saw the year 11's back at St Bedes and on the very lovely 3G.

After a couple of tricky pre-season friendlies the squad were all raring to go in a competitive fixture.

Last time we met Rockleaze in the League we ended up snatching a point with a very late goal in a game where we dominated, struggled to convert chances and conceded from a relatively rare piece of pressure.

This time round I could almost cut and paste that match report and be done with it.

Overall the game was an exciting and tense. The first half was short of quality but any neutral would probably have enjoyed the effort and the end to end nature of it. The Foxes struggle to find any rhythm, being drawn into a rushed, ball-in-the-air kind of contest which isn't really what we do best. We had the lions share of possession while Rockleaze did hit the bar and so 0-0 at half time felt reasonable outcome.

The second half saw the away team reduced to 10 men due to school rugby matches and this led to the Foxes pretty much being camped in the opposition half. The home team's passing and movement improved and with that came a number of good goal scoring opportunities. A notable feature was the quality of the Foxes' corners from Ollie, Const and Sam but sadly no a single one was converted.

On rare foray into the home team's half, Rockleaze snatched the lead with a goal that said a lot about their spirit. If anything this further spurred us on and Jack equalised almost immediately from perhaps our best move of the day. Despite Sam hitting the bar, three or four clear chances and a good penalty shout we were unable to add to our score and had to settle for a point.

A frustrating start to the season, played in great spirit and with glimpses of better things to come.

Jack was voted players' player and Const, on his debut, coaches player.