Saturday 7th January 2022
Wolverhampton U14 Boys - 1 v Doncaster U14 Boys - 3
On a day of FA Cup 3rd round shocks, including Kidderminster Harriers win v Reading, where ex-Wolverhampton schoolboys, Ashley Hemmings (Aldersley) and Amari Morgan- Smith (Heath Park) combined to get the winning goal, Wolverhampton U14 produced a shocking performance.
Following some good performances this season we were hoping for progress in this new ESFA Plate competition and a home fixture v Doncaster Schools gave us the chance to reach a national semi final. Whilst we were missing the influential, David Osifo and Zesayous Graham in midfield we were fairly confident going into the game as most players who had performed well this season were available
The game was very open from the outset and Roman Duggan shot over after just 7 minutes of the game and this gave us some encouragement. On 15 minutes Wolverhampton took the lead following an excellent direct free kick from around 35 yards off the boot of Roman Duggan, flew over the Doncaster keeper and into the net. 1-0
Wolverhampton were leading but had not really got into the game, and the game was very scrappy. Dylan Ridley was called upon to make a good save to maintain our lead but it didn’t last too long. With Doncaster’s first corner a long ball to our far post was not cleared, and the ball landed at the feet of a grateful Doncaster forward in front of our goal and he smashed the ball in to make it 1-1.
Wolverhampton tried to get back into the game and it was again Roman Duggan who had another attempt on goal but again it was just over. This was followed by a shot from Yusuf Bisiriy that again just missed the target. Whilst we had these attempts on goal, Wolverhampton were showing no cohesion, either in defence or when attacking. From Doncaster's second corner a lack of defending again lead to a goal, and not surprisingly, based on the performance, Wolverhampton found themselves 1-2 down going into half time.
It was difficult to explain the ‘shocking’ first half performance of the team. We hadn’t played like a team in any area of the pitch, and it was difficult to understand why we were making the mistakes that we were doing. There were too many unforced errors from too many players.
Half time: Wolverhampton 1 Doncaster 2
Kaidon Robinson who was getting very little service up front was moved into a deeper, central attacking midfield role and this almost brought an immediate impact as he moved the ball onto Harley Carrier who in turn set Zeke Dira free on the left. Unfortunately Zeke’s shot went over the bar.
Kaidon Robinson had an attempt that went just over and the second half still couldn’t bring the best out of the Wolverhampton players, and too many players had an off day. To make matters worse a Doncaster forward broke clear to slide the ball past the on-rushing Mason Brown in the Wolverhampton goal to complete the scoring.
A surprisingly poor performance from the Wolverhampton team who have generally played well in most games this season.
Full time: Wolverhampton 1 Doncaster 3