Today our boys’ league team played their 4th game of the season vs St. Francis De Sales. Top spot in the league was riding on this match so the boys were desperate to get stuck in! A capacity crowd watched on as the game began…

It took all of 2 minutes for the deadlock to be broken! A low cross from Zac Abbou was met with a close range finish from Dylan O’Brien for 1-0! A frequent goalscorer; Dylan was undoubtedly an excellent summer signing! He proved this again by making it 2-0 minutes later with another effort inside the penalty area.

Though 2-0 down, St. Francis De Sales showed how dangerous they were as defender Jake Jones “fell into” a striker in the box to concede a penalty! When 2-1 looked imminent, Kamil Skop made an excellent diving save onto the bar to stop the penalty taker! Mr. Garth was attempting to referee and reviewed the goal-line technology before ruling no goal! OLI used the momentum of Kamil’s save to attack and set up a chance for Joe McFarlane-Wells that he took beautifully with a driven finish. His 3rd goal of the season meant 3-0! Soon after, Dylan netted a first-half hat-trick to end the half at 4-0!

As Jonny Gee came on for the second half into a new central midfield role, the boys continued to press with Bobby Mitchell coming very close to a goal several times. The relentlessness was rewarded through Zac Abbou scoring another OLI goal to add to his 2 goals from the previous game! Dylan scored a remarkable 4th goal soon after for an OLI 6th, putting him in leading contention for the golden boot.

Before full time, St. Francis De Sales scored a very deserved goal from close range after a corner. This made it 6-1, which left Kamil a bit unhappy to lose his clean sheet, though he’d like me to make it known that the goal was “definitely not his fault”. The game finished 6-1 with another excellent result for the team. Many parents commented at how nice it was to see the boys not only enjoying themselves, but for playing with such positivity. Let’s hope for the same in tomorrow’s final league match!

MOTM: Daniel Smith. Faultless defending and professionalism, Daniel is only in year 5 but plays with the game of a much more experienced player, he was excellent today.