Our under-18s suffered their first defeat of the season with a 4-2 loss to Aston Villa on Saturday morning.
Despite goals from Ceadach O’Neill and Dan Casey, we were edged out in an eventful encounter, with Bradley Burrowes’ hat-trick and a strike from Markie Meade securing victory for the visitors.
Villa, who began the match top of the table, started strongly and nearly went ahead inside two minutes when Burrowes looked set to score, but Cam’ron Ismail showed superb determination to clear the ball off the line.
Our first real chance came when Theo Julienne played a delightful ball in behind for O’Neill, but his effort was well saved by Villa goalkeeper Owen Asemota. Moments later, O’Neill went close again, clipping the outside of the post with a well-taken free-kick.
Villa thought they’d broken the deadlock when Burrowes’ shot struck the bar, but despite their appeals, the ball was judged not to have crossed the line. They eventually took the lead just before half-time when Meade cut inside and, via a double deflection, saw his shot find the back of the net.
We levelled the match shortly after the half time interval, with O’Neill reacting quickest to smash home his own rebound after his initial volley was saved.
Our confidence grew, and we took the lead after a brilliant counter-attack led by Ismail, who combined excellently with Casey before the latter curled a fine effort into the bottom corner.
However, our advantage was short-lived, as Villa won a penalty, and Burrowes coolly sent Jack Porter the wrong way to equalise.
The Villans regained the lead late on when Burrowes finished off a sweeping counter-attack, and as we pushed forward deep into added time, he struck again to complete his hat-trick and secure all three points for the visitors.
