On a very cold frosty morning the JPLS representative teams from the Under 12's, 13's, 14's & 15's all met in Cardiff for their matches against Cardiff City FC Academy.
 
For all but the 15's this was to be their first game together and with such a large group of players it was always going to be a very stern test!
 

The Under 12's managed by Tom Whitty, of Burton Albion Central, worked very hard throughout the 80 minutes and ended up with a very creditable 5-1 scoreline in favour of Cardiff City. When taking into account that 8 teams had players representing the league it was going to be difficult playing against a team that trains together twice a week and plays most weekends.

Tom said that the team played some great football though and never dropped their heads and that the effort of the players was amazing throughout the game.
Cardiff were very impressed as well that a team of boys new to each other and definitely inexperienced at this high level managed to play as well as they did. Personally I can't wait for the next game to see how this age group representative side grows and news will be out soon on their next game.
 







The Under 13's managed by Craig Chapple of North Somerset Football Development did tremendously well and kept the score to 4-1 in Cardiff's favour. The scoreline doesn't really reflect the game though as the first quarter ended with the JPLS being 1-0 ahead courtesy of fine goal from Morgan Filer of Newport County.
This age group had players from 11 of our clubs and to bring a group of boys together for the first time and push Cardiff like they did for most of the game was awesome (I sound very American i know). As with the 12's this level of football is still very new to the boys and to put in the performance they did was a credit to the league. The scoreline was 2-1 until the last quarter when a mixture of fitness and inexperience allowed Cardiff to break and score 2 further goals. The Cardiff coaches admitted that the game was tough for them and on a better day and a bit more familiarity between our players the score could have been different.
 

The Under 14's managed by Craig Filer of Newport County had a great game against a very tough Cardiff side and came out of it fantastically with a 1-1 draw that even the Cardiff City coach admitted was flattering to his team. We dominated the game for large periods with a passing game that belied the fact that these boys had never played together before as they represented 10 different clubs. We played a lovely passing game and kept possession with a calmness that shows the type of football we are advocating in our league.

We went 1-0 up in the first quarter through a headed goal from Ben Jones of Newport County and were denied one of the most obvious penalties I have ever seen; the ref did make up for this though when not awarding a goal to Cardiff that did look as if it had crossed the line. Cardiff did not get their equaliser until the last 2 minutes and the way they celebrated showed how tough the game had been for them.
 

The Under 15's managed by Paul Taylor of Jamie Shore Soccer (JSSI) had the game of the day against a Cardiff side featuring players that have represented Wales at schoolboy international level.
We won the game 2-0 with goals from Jamie Morris of AFD Bath City and Jordan Edwards of North Somerset and could have won by more after we hit the post and also had a penalty well saved.
Paul's game plan worked perfectly for this team with the boys understanding the need to keep possession when we had the ball and not panic when we didn't and keep our shape.

This team had clearly benefited from already having played a representative match before even though 11 clubs were represented.
This game more than the others illustrated perfectly the potential of our league representative teams and I am sure all of them will have good results as they become more experienced.
 
A big thank you to all of the players and coaches involved who worked very hard yesterday to produce some great football.
Also many thanks to Cardiff City FC Academy for inviting us down to the University of Glamorgan to play them and the warm welcome everyone received.

Finally a big thank you to all of the parents who drove to Cardiff and to our players - I hope you enjoyed the games as much as we did it was a feast of good football from both sides, your boys did us all proud!


Photos: You will see a gallery below containing photos taken by Wayne Henley (JPLS Website/Systems) on the day you are more than welcome to help yourselves to any of them free of charge as per normal but we have also created our own gallery where larger copies of these photos can be purchased from as little as 18p (each).
There is also some great gift ideas there if you want to spend a little more.
As you may already be aware the leagues representative teams program is totally free of charge to our players so ALL proceeds from our PhotoBox gallery go towards helping fund the representative teams with kit etc.
http://www.photoboxgallery.com/JPLS

Martin Brock
JPLS