Another big day for the Blue’s, this time taking part as one of the last four teams in the 2011 league cup, a competition where we have had an amazing run of excellent victories.

Today we had been drawn against the best in the league, Broadbridge Heath, a team who sit at the top of Division A and have already secured a place in this seasons County cup final,

It was going to hard and we needed to be at the top of our game to get a result.

The game kicked off and the early exchanges of played looked optimistic, it was easy to see the quality we were playing against but we too were showing some good touches, our defence looked well organised and mopped up all that came their way, Toby also made a couple of confident early saves. Saint Hill also created a couple of early chances, the best one coming when Josh was through on the right hand side, unfortunately he shot wide.

Saint Hill battled and battled and was unlucky when on the 16th minute they conceded a well taken Broadbridge goal.    Broadbridge’s forwards were very good at holding up against our last man and unfortunately for us we got caught twice more before halftime when our back line was not quite as organised as it should be, the speed of their forwards meant we could not catch them as we do when playing our usual league games.

So we went in at halftime 3-0 down.

In the second half we took steps to strengthen the centre of midfield and to try and prevent the balls coming through to their forwards and again we started the half brightly and we competed really well, but as we pushed to try and get on the score sheet we were caught with another through ball which their impressive No.6 put away. At 4-0 down the lads energy was drained and we went on to concede a further 3 goals, one which was right at the end of the game. We lost 7-0.

As expected this was a hard game, I feel the 7-0 result was a little complementary to our opponents but it gives us an indication of where we are and what we need to work on to progress. I have great faith in our bunch of lads and know that next season when we compete at a higher level, our game level will rise too, we will play teams that push us harder each week and it will be that which takes to the higher level.

I’m not going to talk about individuals performances in today’s report or even give a man of the match, at Thursday’s training session we will take a little time out to discuss the match and areas where we feel we could improve on as a team.

I said above, no man of the match and that’s because I feel in this superb cup run they are all men of the match, this has been a great journey and something that each of them should be really proud of, to get to the last 4 in their first season together is an amazing achievement, a division D team has never ever got this far in the competition, but we did we are in the history books and they should all have their heads held real high.

We now have to focus on the remaining 4 games left to play in the league, starting next week at home to Billingshurst Blades U12 and what a contrast from this week the top of division A to the bottom of division D.

Well done boys and thanks to all for your help and support.

See you at training Thursday.

Dave.