v Felling Saturday 13th September

Leeds 5 - Felling 1  

 

With games against Huddersfield Town and the Arizona Gala cancelled because of heavy rain, Leeds finally got their season underway with an impressive victory over Felling.  The weather still had a say on proceedings with a location change, the still unfit St. Theresa's was swapped for the long grass of Woodlesford Park.

 

Leeds started the game with the same air of confidence that brought such success towards the end of last season.  The high tempo and quality passing continuously put Felling on the back foot.  The movement of strikers Jack Bagnall and Tom Lyman was pulling defenders out of position and it was no surprise when Leeds took the lead.  A Shaun Gibson pass from the back released Tom Lyman down the right which resulted in a shot that the keeper could only parry into the path of Jack Bagnall 1-0 Leeds.  Full credit to Felling who hit back immediately but wasted a golden opportunity from 3 yards out when they shot wide.  This was a rare raid into the Leeds area as the Leeds defence featuring the composed Danny Meston and Lucas Smedley plus the mean machine central defensive partnership of Sam Williamson and Adam Jameson generally had things under control.  It was the impressive Jameson who moved forward for a corner to put Leeds 2 up when a tremendous in swinger from Danny Powell on the left was only half cleared by Felling and Adam was on hand to despatch the rebound.

 

Leeds came out for the second period with 5 changes and 2 new faces Tom Clarkson and Ali Unsworth who made impressive debuts.  Tom was solid and assured in defence and Ali showed some dazzling skills down the right hand side as the game followed a similar pattern with Leeds carving open the Felling defence.  On 29 minutes Ali crowned a superb debut when he finished off the move of the match that started with Shaun Gibson 40 yards out playing an astute pass behind the fullback for Tom Lyman who showed great vision to pick out Ali at the far post who finished well to put Leeds 3-0 to the good.

 

Leeds didn't ease up with every player looking to impress, Kieran Booth deserved a goal for some tireless work up front, but it was last seasons leading scorer Tom Lyman who was on hand to make it 4 after a superb through ball from Elliott Jewitt..

 

The third period saw more changes when Sam Capitono who showed a tremendous work ethic in an unfamiliar left hand side of midfield position was replaced by Danny Powell and Danny Hebditch joined Callum Rzonca in central midfield.  Callum nearly made it 5 when he went on an explosive run into the penalty area only to be thwarted by the on rushing keeper.  Unfortunately for the keeper he went from hero to villain a minute later when he fumbled an easy Kieran Booth cross to leave Danny Powell with a simple tap in.

 

Felling as you would expect from a team from the North East kept fighting to the end and firstly forced Sam Williamson into a superb goal line clearance and then scored a brilliant 25 yard goal that gave Brandon Lindley no chance.

 

This though was definitely a day for the boys from Leeds and the quality of their play showed a maturity beyond their years, although to be fair there will be much tougher tests ahead.