The Fire Under 16 Boys have ended their last season as Junior players on a high after taking out the League title in Round 26.
The young squad had challenges throughout the season but were able to clinch the title by two points after defeating SWQ Thunder and drawing with Moreton Bay in the final game of the season on September 7.
Coach Ben Cahn had the Under 16s team for the first time this year and said although there had been a lot to work on, it was the team’s ability to adapt and learn gave them the edge this season.
“It was evident in pre-season …that despite being a highly rated group of players, they didn’t have a collective mentality geared for success. Their ability to adapt and learn and make changes to things such as their approach to training was what allowed them to succeed,” he said.
“They are at an age where there are many distractions, so to keep them focused week after week, session after session in a long season was always going to be a challenge but one that we all succeeded in achieving.
“It is very pleasing to secure the League title given the amount of hard work the players have put in throughout the season.”
Cahn said the boys were aware all season that they could take out the title, but did not allow this to influence their preparation and the core values they were striving to develop.
“Knowing we could take out the title didn’t change how we prepared for games; we kept training to try to improve our performances.”
“We believed all year that would win it, simply because we expected to control every game we played. We said every week that we will control the possession of the game and we have the attacking players capable of providing decisive moments in any game.We knew that at some stage we would come under pressure but we worked very hard structurally to be hard to break down.
“This group has always had brilliant ability going forward, add Adam Edgar’s 25 goals to that and a belief that they will keep clean sheets and there was no reason we couldn’t achieve big things.”
Towards the end of the season the Fire was under pressure, having played less games than all the other teams aside from Moreton Bay. Every game became crucial in the race for the title.
“We were good against Brisbane Strikers in Round 21 after a poor display at Olympic the week before. We had a bad first half against SWQ in Round 25 but were terrific in the second half,” Cahn said.
The final game against Moreton Bay in Round 26 would at that stage secure the title for the team, and the pressure was on when a shaky first-half saw Fire 2-0 down at half-time.
“Moreton Bay was tough, I think it was the only game all year where the boys felt any pressure to get a result and our performance suffered resulting in us having to try and recover a two goal lead.”
“However, once we got control of the game there was only ever one way it was going to go, especially with Adam Edgar’s desire to score against his old club!”
Cahn said securing the league title had particular significance for the boys after five years together as a team coming through the ranks of football on the coast.
“They were pretty pleased with themselves…it meant a lot to them. Some of them will continue their pursuit of professional football while others will go back to the local league and concentrate on year 12 at school so it is nice for them to have had this achievement in their last year of junior football,” he said.
“2014 has been one of my most enjoyable seasons. It was a great group of people to be part of. I have learned a lot from the players and from Manager Brett de Chastel and I wish them all the best for the next chapter of their football careers.”
