This Is Guernsey

By Aaron Scoones

Guernsey U-16s 0, Gloucestershire U-16s 3

GUERNSEY under-16s could not build on their worthy draw with Dorset, going down to Gloucestershire in their second South & West Counties Under-16 Championship outing. The previous week at the Track, Paul Ockleford’s side, despite losing the lead twice, had given a good account of themselves in a 2-2 draw with Dorset. However, at Blanche Pierre Lane on Saturday, three first-half goals from a strong Gloucestershire outfit was enough to see them off.

‘Overall they were a better side than Dorset last week and they were definitely street-wise as opposed to some of ours,’ said Ockleford afterwards.

‘Last week it took us 10 minutes to get going. This week it took us 40 minutes.

‘There was a much better response at half time. We changed it around to 4-5-1 for the second half and we tried to get the ball behind their defence and even at 3-0 down, we still had chances.

‘It’s the attitude of our players that was pleasing. The second half was really good, first half we weren’t really in it.

‘They got bullied out of it. It’s always disappointing when you lose but at least there was something positive in the second half.’

In the first 10 minutes Guernsey felt they had won a penalty when striker Daena Bodie was brought down in the area only for the ref to wave play on. It could also be argued that the offending Gloucester defender was lucky not have seen a red card as he was the last covering defender as well.

Minutes later the visitors’ Kalem Smith rattled the post with a searing hot strike and this was a taster for things to come.

On 20 minutes Aaron McQuaid scored with a wonderful piece of individual skill.

With his back to goal, the centre forward flipped the ball over his head before finding the back of the net.

This was soon followed by a header from Smith to make it 2-0.

The third for Gloucestershire came just after 30 minutes when McQuaid fed his strike partner Alex Tierney and the latter had no problem tucking it away.

Just before half time, the greens had a golden opportunity to drag one back when Bodie broke free but instead of shooting passed it to Robbie Le Corre, who could only side-foot it straight into the keeper Mitchell Graham.

Then, on the stroke of half time, Ben Youlton tested Graham with a shot from deep that the keeper could only just about deal with.

In the second half the home side got more into the swing of things and their best two headed chances belonged to their captain Jack Domaille, both from corners.