OUr u23s vs i2i United u23s – a brief match report

i2i Utd 4
Frickley U23s 3

These days, quite rightly in my opinion, you’re not allowed to call the officials incompetent.

A goal from a perfectly legitimate deliberate handball & then a corner that was then changed to a goal kick which was then changed to a (converted) penalty contributed to the Young Blues being 4-1 down last night & really under the cosh after a Cummins Cannonball had given us the lead. But these boys aren’t beaten until the final whistle blows & 2 goal of the season contributions from Bailey Cowsell brought it back to 4-3…….& if the game had gone on for another 10 minutes we would have won it

But we didn’t – so our 100% start to the season gets ended in very dubious circumstances

A tough encounter was expected as Frickley’s youngsters travelled to 2nd in the league i2i Utd as they looked to maintain their unbeaten start to the season & it certainly played out that way.

We got off to a dream start in the opening 15mins when Lucas Brown superbly found Josh Cummins who cut inside from the right to fire an unstoppable left foot shot into the far top corner, great start.

To be fair to our opponents, they responded well & equalised almost immediately when they scored with a far post header after the visitors had a hand ball shout turned down (the Leeds Becket University basketball team, who were training on the next pitch, admired the handling skills of the 121 player so much they signed him on the spot)

Both defences were on top & each team were cancelling each other out for the remainder of the first half, although Josh Cummins nearly scored another screamer just before half time but his long range effort just went wide of the post. It would have been a quite incredible goal

Half time 1-1.

For the majority of the second half i2i were on top, they were pinning us back & midway through they scored 3 goals in a poor 15/20 min spell for us.

The 1st was a dubious penalty (Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a corner? Is it a goal kick? Is it a penalty?), the 2nd was a mix up defensively and the 3rd was unfortunate after a great point blank save from Alfie Denton.

Credit to the Young Azzurri though as they didn’t fold & give up, they went onto to score 2 more goals of the season contenders from Bailey Cowsell.

Bailey’s 1st was a stunning free kick after Jacob Camozzi had been fouled on the edge of box, he superbly curled the ball over the wall into the top corner. Then his 2nd was another superb finish when he latched onto a Leo Cosgrove clearance to lob the keeper from well over 30 yards out.

Time to throw the kitchen sink at i2i now, but unfortunately time was running out & the home side held on for a probably deserved 3 points……just!!

Paul Mann MOTM went to our Skipper Tom Cotson who led his team superbly, he never gave up & was instrumental in his side nearly snatching a draw late on.

Next week we entertain the unbeaten league leaders Emley at home; Thursday 6th November, 7.45pm kick off. So it would great if we could get numbers at the Wezzie to back the boys