Douglas Villa U19 win 3 out of 5
Updated: 23 hours ago
Despite not making it into the semi finals, the Douglas Villa U19 team had a somewhat successful time at the annual Bob Bamford U19 tournament played in Upper Hutt over the weekend. Placed in the toughest pool, Villa started the competition on Saturday with a good win over Upper Hutt, lost their second game to eventual tournament winners Wellington Olympic, and then Western Suburbs ran away with the third game, six to nil, leaving the Wairarapa side bottom of the table on goal difference.
That left Villa with two playoff games on Sunday. I was able to make it to the first one of those against Seatoun which turned out to be a good entertaining game - especially the first half - but it was marred by some ill-discipline that saw the referee show five yellow and one red card. Villa picked up four of those yellows and the red, and while I consider that some of those were a bit soft and unfortunate, the young team will need to control things a little better when they take the field again next week when the Ivan England tournament resumes in Lower Hutt.
Overall, I thought the Villa lads looked the better team. They played well in the opening twenty minutes and were rewarded with goals to striker Jayden English in the 18th and 19th minutes. However like so many teams that go a couple of goals up, Villa slackened off just a little and were punished when Seatoun clawed a goal back. Shaun Dudson scored a third goal for Villa a few minutes before the halftime break.
The second half was a lot more patchy. Villa continued to look strong at times but Seatoun had a lot more of the ball and much the action was played in Villa’s half. There was a lot a shirt-pulling and niggly little fouls from both sides, and the referee was more than happy to give his cards plenty of fresh air.
Seatoun scored another goal after a bizarre incident when keeper Sam Hardgrave was ruled to have picked the ball up following a back pass from a defender and Seatoun were awarded a free kick a few metres in front of goal. Despite placing all eleven players in the goalmouth, the ball somehow got through to give Seatoun a goal which made the final score 3-2 to Douglas Villa.
The team only had a fifteen-minute break before their next playoff game against Levin which they won 5-2.
So overall a pretty good tournament for the young Villa side and they should come away pleased with their performance. They played a total of five games, won three of them - only losing to the very good Olympic and Western Suburbs/Ole Academy teams. Not only a good buildup for next Sunday’s Ivan England game which I understand is also against Seatoun, but also a very positive outlook for Wairarapa football in the coming years.
Results
Douglas Villa U19 1 (vs) Upper Hutt 0
Douglas Villa U19 0 (vs) Wgtn Olympic 3
Douglas Villa U19 0 (vs) Wests/Ole Academy 6
Douglas Villa U19 3 (vs) Seatoun 2
Douglas Villa U19 5 (vs) Levin 2
All the photos are online here