St Pius X College, High Energy Youth Cup win Brisbane, Queensland
Well what a fortnight of football that was! As a football coach for over 30 years I have just had the pleasure of being involved in two fantastic weeks of tournament and cup football, spanning both Queensland and New South Wales.
In early July we took our
St Pius 1st XI up to Brisbane to compete in the
High Energy Youth Cup, this was our the eighth visit in a decade and we knew that we had never won the major trophy. However, the squad traveled with the knowledge that we had already booked a NSWCIS Cup final spot and we were also 4 points clear in the ISA competition. That said, playing a tournament of eight matches in a week is something different again.
Preparation and recovery
Living on the St Lucia campus of the University of Queensland is a great base down by the river. The tournament itself is held across town at
Mitchleton Football club over five full days. The addition of Chris Semaan to our coaching team on tour proved to be a good move. Chris took charge of player preparation with well run warm ups / warm downs and pool sessions. Leisa Proc toured for the third time and organised all paperwork and tournament communication. Being able to spread the workload enabled my fellow coach Simon Yue and myself to concentrate on tactics and line ups.
First day
On the first morning we got off to a flying start downing Brisbane side
Clairvaux MacKillop 7-0! Striker Claudio maintaining his great 2014 goal-scoring form with hat-trick. We followed this result later in the day with a 2-0 over Brisbane GPS side
Brisbane Boys College.
Second day
Accompanying us to Queensland were two fellow Sydney sides both from the GPS competition ...`
The Kings School and
SHORE. Facing the latter in our second game, we again played well to down them 2-0.
In 2014 there was a single New Zealand school competing and
Scots College were our next opponents. Against probably our most physical opponent so far, we again kept a clean sheet winning clearly by 3-0.
Third day
By the time the third day of competition it became clear who the dangers were in this
High Energy Youth Cup and interestingly we faced them both on that day.
St Peter Claver are an Ipswich based Queensland college who run a football academy program. They actually won this competition in 2014 eliminating us in the semi-final on penalties. In 2013 we beat them 5-0 in the round games so it obviously gave this match that bit of an edge. In the event this was our best performance of the week. We powered home 4-0 to set us up with a match with joint leaders
African Youth United. this team is also a Queensland based academy bringing together a whole range of African nationalities....Somali Sudanese Congolese to name a few. Playing such sides in Queensland is a great test. They were very quick...possessed a great individual touch and played open attacking football. It was thus very pleasing that our superior discipline and organisation on the day helped to a deserved 1-0 win Esposito getting the decisive goal.
Final day
This sort of competition uses a ranking system over the week to decide who advances to the main semi-finals. Winning all six games without conceding a goal and collecting maximum points helped us take top ranking the reward being a clash with
SHORE who had placed 4th of the nine sides involved.
Again our range of attacking options proved to much for them running out clear 2-0 winners Nick Refenes running through the middle to seal the victory. In the other semi-final
St Peter Claver faced
African Youth United in a thriller. The former trailed right to the death before equalising to force the game to penalties.....then won the shoot out....facing us in the Grand Final being their reward.
Fortunately we had a seven hour break before the final and went into the game with the quiet confidence of a team who had not conceded a goal in the competition.
As a New South Wales school taking on a Brisbane school we were always going to be up against it in Queensland!
St Peter Claver certainly had the support of the locals in what was a crowd of several hundred.
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| Frelingos wins it! |
Mitchleton Football club opened up their main first grade oval for the final which in theory should have been good but in the event proved a bind for us. It was big, dry and dusty and certainly proved a leveler in the final. Our St Pius players started nervously and really struggled to get a rhythm. The referee seemed unwilling to allow much physical contact and we quickly trailed in the free kick count in what was a stop start affair. Eventually a one two between Refenes and Claudio saw the latter beat the keeper to make it 1-0. Half time came and went and we seemed to moving to a less than impressive win. Free kicks started to mount as we tightened somewhat and in the last ten we came under heavy pressure. Then just 15 seconds from the end
St Peter Claver forced the ball home from a corner to make it 1-1. Ten minutes extra time was played but penalties were going to be the divider in this contest.
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| Safely home with a trophy from Queensland! |
People often wonder how you decide who will take the penalty kicks. This is question easily answered for it is in the eyes of the players .....you don't really need to ask. As a coach I usually allow the players to decide the order ....in this particular case I actually told one player he was taking the sixth kick for us only because in previous shoot outs he had missed for us stepping up early. We don't practice penalty kicks at training but have had one session this season where each player had to describe to me what his single kick would look like...then take it that way. I just stipulate that we don't want any staggered runs or the like....walk up and take it!
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| Captain John Chapman lifts the High Energy Cup in Queensland |
As this penalty shoot out began the local crowd made a big effort to lift their boys. Both sides scored their first kick but then we missed our second and they scored theirs. We scored our third to make it 2-2 but they then missed to keep things level. We scored our fourth kick before our keeper Greg Frelingos proved his agility with a great save to his left. In the end defender Ben John stepped up to calmly score the winner although he did admit afterwards that he was unaware that his shot was the decisive one! 4-3 on penalties will be the way this Cup win will be recorded. In truth having had such a great week it shows how luck and fortune can play a role for we never conceded a goal until the last normal time minute of the last game.
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| As you would imagine we were ecstatic to win this competition after trying since 2004! |
St Pius X College NSWCIS Cup Final win, Sydney, New South Wales
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| Hensley Park |
Returning to Sydney that evening was a buzz knowing we had another final in just eight days in the
NSWCIS Cup against north shore rivals
Barker College.
Hensley Park Eastgardens is
a modern 'all weather' astro facility and the bounce and running of the ball is true. On a cold winters night in July we faced
Barker hoping to repeat our victory of 2012 when we beat
Newington College.
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| The crowd certainly like it! |
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| 79th Minute Pozan! |
Even first half
As had been the story in Queensland, conceding free kicks was to be a problem because after just one minute we went 0-1 down when the
Barker centre-back followed up, when the shot came back off the crossbar.
Fortunately we had the whole match to recover and we set about this task generally controlling the game. After 30 minutes we were rewarded when captain John Chapman drove home a penalty kick after Nick Refenes was brought down. Despite further pressure it was 1-1 at half time.
Half time talk
Many have since asked what exactly we said at that break. In truth we said that there was little to change apart from two things. First, we needed to start making 'runs' for the team...you know the ones with little hope of success. Added to this we needed to start anticipating rather than reacting and realize that the perfect run of the ball would not be forthcoming....a toe poke in the six yard box would do just fine.
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| Four goal hero Claudio Rosano |
Second half blitz
Barker never really got a touch in the second half...we moved up though the gears and tore them apart with runs on both wings from Esposito and Refenes. More than this striker Claudio set about terrorising the defence through the middle scoring four goals in the match....one toe poke. Bocecki and Desa were faultless while captain John Chapman was driving force. By the time we went to the bench we were 4-1 up yet the reserves lifted us even higher with to more goals to make it 6-1. The crowd on this great night numbered about 400 but I would doubt that the venue has ever witnessed such fervent support.
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| Esposito scores a cracker! |
What a great night for St Pius X College 1st XI and the school in general. An inter state Queensland / New South Wales Cup double in just eight days. Fantastic!
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| Fantastic feeling! |
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| Second NSWCIS Cup in three years for St Pius X College |
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| A happy night for our fantastic support |
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| Celebration! |
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| Formal for posterity |
NSWCIS Cup Results
Bye
Round 1
St Aloysius Round 2 4-1 Chapman Refenes 2 Bersee
St Spyridons Round 3 2-0 Refenes Claudio
Illawarra Grammar Quarter Final forfeit
St Josephs Semi-final 1-0 Drake
Barker College Final 6-1 Claudio 4 Esposito Chapman
High Energy Youth Cup Results
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| Clairvaux MacKillop | Monday | 7-0 |
Claudio 3 Esposito 2 Chapman Desa | | |
| Brisbane Boys College | Monday | 2-0 | Morton Bersee | | |
| SHORE | Tuesday | 2-0 | Chapman Luicci | | |
| Scots College | Tuesday | 3-0 | Morton Chapman Esposito | | |
| St Peter Claver | Thursday | 4-0 | Claudio Desa Esposito Bersee | | |
| African Youth United | Thursday | 1-0 | Esposito | | |
| SHORE | Friday Semi | 2-0 | Esposito Refines |
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St Peter Claver Friday Final 1-1 AET Claudio ( St Pius won 4-3 pens)
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