Burnley U18 1-2 Oldham Athletic U18
Tanya Blakey

A good quality game between two relatively young teams saw Latics come out on top.

Latics started the game very brightly and they moved the ball around with purpose and played the game at a very high tempo.

They immediately began causing the Burnley defence problems and the schoolboy front two of Tom Eaves and Djeny Bembo-Leta were displaying some fine forward play.

 It came as no surprise when continuous Latics pressure led to Bembo-Leta volleying home on the far post after fine play on the right by Chris Rowney.

Minutes later Latics could have doubled their lead when again fine play down the right hand side led to Bembo-Leta crossing for his strike partner Eaves to head against the underside of the bar.

At the other end, the Latics defence was very solid and snuffed out any attempted counter attacks, with schoolboy trialist Richard Cowan doing very well in only his second start at this level.

The Latics continued to look the more cohesive team and continually carved out chances which unfortunately they failed to take before half time.

The second half was a much more even affair, and credit to Burnley they began to put Latics under a lot more pressure and the Latics defence was increasingly being tested.

However, they displayed a resolution that at times this season has been missing and during one of these periods, Latics broke up the right hand side again and a fine delivery into the box by Aaron Walsh was excellently controlled and finished by Eaves to double Latics' lead.

Coach Tony Philliskirk then changed things around and added another three schoolboys to the field of play -- this slightly affected the Latics for a short time and they lost a little bit of momentum.

However, the introduction of these schoolboys gives them great experience at playing at a much better level than they are used to.

It was during this period that Burnley pulled a goal back and the last ten minutes saw the game see-saw.

Latics could easily have added to the scoreline whilst at the other end they had to defend manfully to keep their lead intact.

Both teams did miss half chances to change the scoreline but the referee soon blew his whistle and the final score remained 2-1 to Latics.

With the Latics having 7 schoolboys involved in the game, it can only be said that this was an excellent result for the youngsters and a fine testament to the full-time apprentices that did play and the job they did in helping the younger players.