The Bathurst Cup provided the 13s with the perfect platform to demonstrate what we have worked on in pre-season. In 30+ degree heat, the boys played very well across the group games against Wagga City, Macarthur AYL, and Chatswood winning all three games comfortably and topping their group.

Confidence was high for Sunday’s quarter-final against fellow NPL2 outfit Western NSW. Unfortunately, the game did not go to plan and the team wasn’t able to reach the heights of the performances on Saturday.

Ultimately it was a great weekend for the team as a whole and sets up nicely for the season ahead.

Whilst we do not have a summary for the 14s, they too did the club proud reaching the Quarter Finals.

The 15s enjoyed a successful Cup weekend going all the way to the Grand Final and only conceding one goal throughout the tournament. The boys started their weekend with easy victories on Saturday and were pushed on Sunday morning against Manly FA. An inspired team attitude ensured the boys progressed as group winners.

A 2-1 Quarter final win against Lindfield FC set up a Semi-Final showdown with local Western NSW which the boys won comfortably 2-0.

NPL 1 Spartans awaited the lads in the Grand Final. The majority of the match was tightly contested with the deadlock broken with three minutes from full time, as the Spartans were first to react to a series of unfortunate deflections from a corner to poke home the ball.

Most teams would have given up after such an unfortunate setback, but Flame showed great resilience to push on and earn a corner in the dying moments and gave the Spartans a taste of their own medicine equalising right on full time.

Flame had the Spartans on the ropes throughout the 5 minute golden goal period and could consider themselves unfortunate to find a winner, eventually going down in a penalty shootout.

Overall, the boys did themselves and the club very proud and have shown a great improvement in their overall attitude and performances from the past two seasons. No doubt they will be looking forward to building on this weekend’s effort going into the start of the season.

The 16s were ruthless, resilient, and at times unstoppable and they dismantled all those before them going six games without conceding and scoring 14 goals with a total of 48 shots and 30 on target and by doing so, winning their group stage.

The boys won their Quarter-Final 3-0 and Semi-Final 4-0 with the boys able to execute Jason Spencer’s game plan to perfection. The highlight had to be the third goal which saw Flame string a series of passes before setting up an easy tap in finish. It was a goal to behold.

The Grand Final saw Flame square up against the highly fancied NPL1 Spartans. It seemed as though the Spartans totally underestimated the boys and their sluggish start saw Flame take control early as they headed into halftime with a 2-0 lead. The boys were very confident with the way they were dominating the match that there was serious belief they could go on and score more goals. That is exactly what we occurred as the boys rustled up more chances eventually running out comfortable and deserved 3-0 winners.

It very very successful tournament for a very young club and based on the performances on the weekend across all age groups, the teams look like they are going into the season filled with great confidence.

The NPL2 Youth Boys kick of their season this Saturday against UNSW at Ian McLennan Park.