On Saturday, May 12, Tenby Junior School football team travelled to Aberystwyth as Pembrokeshire champions to compete in the Welsh Urdd finals against some of the best teams in Wales (write Jerome and Ellis). It's a journey that the school has made frequently over the last few years and this year's team were eager to go one better than the team of 2005 who lost in the final in a penalty shoot-out. The first game we played was against Ysgol Melin Gruffydd. The game started well with Jerome scoring an early goal. The opposition put us under pressure during the second half and scored an equaliser. We kept battling and we managed to put a good move together down the left, with some excellent play from Tom, and scored what was to be the winning goal. The second game was against Ysgol Pen-y-Bryn and this game was more comfortable for us. Declan and Jerome both scored to give us a 2-0 win. The third and final game of our group was against Ysgol Plascrug from Aberystwyth, and it was a game we had to win to put us through to the semi- final stage. It was a very competitive game which we managed to win through a solitary goal by Jerome. This win was sweet revenge as they managed to beat us in rugby the previous week at Stradey. The excellent performances throughout the group stage meant that we topped our group and were into the semi-finals. The team we were up against was called Holywell and were from North Wales. We were confident going into the match, but leaked a goal early on from long range. However, we didn't let our heads drop and we came back very strongly in the second half and took the lead with two brilliantly worked goals from Declan. Holywell continued to put pressure on us and they managed to equalise with less than a minute to go. The full-time whistle then went which meant that we were going into a 'golden goal' situation. We had a chance when Ellis was through one on one with their 'keeper, but he managed a great save to deny us victory. With seconds to go, and a penalty shoot-out looming, Holywell had a long range effort that was deflected into our net to give them victory. It was a great semi-final with some wonderful football being played and it was a shame that it ended so harshly. A penalty shoot-out would have been very interesting. Squad: Daniel Evans, Jerome Mansbridge (captain), Spencer Williams, Charlie Gammer, Dylan Rees, Declan Escott, Ellis Morgan, Tom Harries, Luke Hartland, Cain Thomas The team can feel very proud with how they performed at Aberystwyth. It was a good test for them and they competed very strongly in every match. Many of the squad are in Year 5 and will be available for next year's team so 2008 could be quite interesting. Well done boys. Thanks also go to the parents who accompanied us on the day and gave great support to the boys.
