Inter Blades at WorldNet 2011

[Inter_Blades]

Just for your info, the Inter Blades boys head to Leeds tomorrow morning for the annual end of season “WorldNet” tournament (see http://www.worldnet.org.uk for full details).

48 teams take part in the main tournament, with a further 20 in the “Vets” tournament.

Day one sees the 48 teams split into 12 groups of 4 and follows a “Champions League” style format, whereby each team plays 3 group games (30 minute matches – 2 x 15 minute halves), the top two from each group progress to the main “IFA Cup” competition on Day Two, as do the best 8 best 3rd place teams.* The bottom placed teams and remaining 4 3rd place teams, take part in the “WorldNet Bowl competition on Day Two. The two “Day Two” tournaments are a straight knock-out competition.

The Inter Blades reached the ¼ final stage of the main tournament last season, so we're hoping to at least equal that achievement.

We face Hibs, Stevenage and Grimsby in our group matches tomorrow, and Peterborough in a friendly.

I'll be tweeting regular updates during the day, and might even pop the scores as they happen onto this thread if I have time too.

Wish us luck!

cheers,
Danny Brown
Inter Blades F.C
w: http://www.interbladesfc.co.uk

 

[silverfox]

Good luck lads!

 

[Jon Bon]

All the best Danny.

 

[Pedro Verde]

Whats the Vets tournament ? Ages ?

 

[Inter_Blades]

Whats the Vets tournament ? Ages ?

I think the current rules are that it's basically an over 33's tournament. You can have a few under 33's in your squad, but there has to be at least 9 over 33's on the pitch at anyone one time.

---------- Post added 24-07-2011 at 12:00 AM ---------- Previous post was 23-07-2011 at 11:54 PM ----------

Good evening all,

Apologies for the lateness of the update, although hopefully some saw the tweets throughout the day.

First up on day one was Scottish opposition in Hibs. We took a while to get settled although to be honest we were rarely troubled at the back, although our Scottish opponents as expected were rather physical. Just before half time a ball was played into our box, and Adam Ward beat his man to the header, unfortunately for him he deflected it straight over the top of Ash in goal. The whistle blew for half time immediately after. We improved in the second half and came out of the blocks quickest, and it wasn't long until James Kemp was played in by Adam Wardand he beat the offside trap and sprinted away from the defence before finishing well past the keeper. I thought we slightly edged the second half, but neither side were able to add to the score in a game of few chances, but 1-1 was a decent result against pretty good opposition.

Next up was Stevenage who already had a group win over Grimsby under their belt. We started the better and should have been ahead at half time, but we never quite managed to break them down. Second half again saw us finally capitalise with Jap Kemp again getting the goal. We had the chances to add to the scoreline but couldn't quite wrap the match up. 1-0 to the Inter Blades at the finish.

After a long lunch break we took to the field for a friendly against Peterborough. We swapped the team round a bit with Goalkeeper Ash playing up front and Colin Rowlands going in goal. We played some very good football at times and took an early 2-0 lead with goals from Matt Bell and Adam Ward. The second half was more of the same which eventually led to a 3rd Inter Blades goal, which was expertly tucked away by their defender for an OG. We earned a penalty mid way through the second half which Ash Hurst took and scored. At 4-0 we were cruising but our clean sheet was unfortunately soon to be broken after a defender can't remember who ;-) lost his footing and hit a weak back pass which the Peterborough forward unfortunately pounced on and stuck away to make the final score 4-1.

The final group game was important although we knew we had probably qualified for the main cup competition on day two already, but a loss meant we finished third in the group, a draw would mean second place and a win would see us top the group. Grimsby were our opponents, a bogey side for us this season, however they had lost both group games today so we were looking to take all three points. We started the game well and were breaking through the Grimsby defence with increasing regularity but were unable to make it count. It took another goal from Jap Kemp to finally make the breakthrough, and we held onto the lead to take top spot in the group.

Next up in the morning is former IFA Champions and WorldNet 2009 winners Preston NE "A", a tough task, but if we put the effort in for 30 minutes and stick to the game plan then there is no reason why we can't push on through to the next round.

cheers,

Danny Brown
Inter Blades F.C
w: http://www.interbladesfc.co.uk

 

[Maidenhead]

good going lads

 

[Tidzablade]

How have you got on on the second day?

 

[Inter_Blades]

Just to round off my WorldNet report:

On the Sunday morning we had unfortunately drawn former IFA League and WorldNet 2009 Champions Preston NE "A", a difficult task, but as I've said to the lads many times previously, on our day we're capable of beating anyone.

Everyone arrived in plenty of time for the kick off (thanks) and Chris gave a rousing team talk, which as someone pointed out to me after, should have had some dramatic music in the background! Preston meanwhile only had 9 men available at the scheduled kick off time, however the ref was kind to them and allowed them an extra few minutes for their remaining team members to make their way down the hill (still pulling items of kit on along the way).

The first half was an even affair, but we were very unlucky not to take the lead mid way through the first half, when James Kemp was played through and just beat the keeper to the ball lobbing it towards goal. Unfortunately a Preston centre back appeared from nowhere and just managed to clear it away from underneath the crossbar, had that chance gone in then who knows what might have happened.

The second half Preston stepped up the pressure and broke through a couple of times, but a combination of good defending and bad finishing kept the scores level at 0-0. We tried to push forward ourselves but weren't attacking as effectively as Preston and ultimately they took the lead. With probably 7 or 8 minutes to go a ball was played into the box and it hit the back of their forwards head/neck and looped over everyone into the net, not sure he knew a lot about it, but the delivery made the goal. We tried to throw everything at them and James Kemp fashioned a chance for himself, cutting inside his man and unleashing a powerful shot, but their excellent keeper got two good hands behind it. Despite our efforts we couldn't quite break them down and the whistle sounded to end our WorldNet mission for this season.

Overall a good effort against a very decent and experienced (IFA competition wise) team who had just won the IFA Cup on Friday evening and finshed 4th in the IFA league despite only playing 18 games out of a maximum 20 (winning 16 and with a +77 goal difference). So, there is no shame in narrowly losing to them.

The boys worked hard and did what Chris asked of them, the only minor criticism maybe was that we weren't quick enough with our decision making on the ball and getting the ball into the right areas up front, but at the end of the day we went into that game with several players missing from the side that won the group on day one.

Roll on WorldNet 2012!

cheers,

UTBs and UTIBs

Danny Brown
Inter Blades F.C
w: http://www.interbladesfc.co.uk

 

[Robbie]

Clearly missing me in defence