Many STC players made their way across to the Gold Coast in January to take part in the Craig Foster International Cup.

13th Grade Boys - "Red & White Stripes"

With 12 months of preparation for the Craig Foster International Cup we as a team had high expectations going into this tournament, travelling across the ditch to play some talented overseas counterparts.

Prior to this trip looking at the draw, we knew we were in for a hard road to the finals stage. Having to play 6 times champions Gold Coast in our opening match was always going to be a tough challenge for the boys to overcome. The boys started slow in our opening fixture going down 5-0 within the first 10 minutes of the match. The game finished 10-3. The result was a hard one to swallow for these young 13 year old boys, but we knew the next game was a crucial game for us to gain some confidence. Trailing for most part of game we were down 3-2 with four minutes to go before scoring. 30 seconds to go on the clock one of the goals of the tournament won us the game 4-3.

Day two was a successful day for the red and white stripes as we gathered four more points. Day 3 was a challenging day with another pool play game prior to the knockout rounds. We managed to secure 3rd spot in our pool meaning we did enough to progress to the next stage.

In the quarter final the boys came out flying and managing to win comfortably and put ourselves into the semi-finals. An early night sleep was important and the message passed to the boys was to “Live in every moment of the game”. We were to come up against Gold Coast in our semi and to overcome a mental barrier of losing to these boys 10-3 opening match was going to be tough.

The courage these 13 year old boys showed in the semi-final was outstanding with fantastic individual performances all over the court but our goalkeeper Kasper had to our player of the day as without him between the sticks we wouldn’t of got through the match the way we did and we progressed to the final after winning 7-3! Final Futsal was always a dream of mine and I knew that it would be a dream for these talented young 13 year old boys.

Onto the final and we fought hard for 40 minutes with the message remaining the same “live in every moment of the game”. A standout performance from Reece Ager who led the ship, saw us come away with a 4-3 win and resulting in us qualifying for the World Futsal Youth Championship in Florida!

- Benji

Players:

Reece Ager

Isaac Topham

Ashton Thackwell 

Casper Clerens

Ezra Green

Finlay Cotton

James Page

Hugo Greet

Coach - Benji Lapslie

Manager - Nick Ager

12th Grade Boys - "Mainland NZ 12"

The Craig Foster International Cup was a huge success for the team this year. Our goal after last year was to make the playoffs, and so we had been working towards this throughout 2018. Taking each game one at a time helped us to treat each game as a final. This mentality enabled us to be competitive in every game we played, and we quickly gained a reputation for being a defensively solid team. After 3 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses we managed to scrape into the playoffs by one point after scoring a last-minute goal in both our final pool games to do so. Having achieved our goal of reaching the quarters, we lost 7-3 to the eventual winners East City Victoria in the quarter finals. The boys did so well though and their effort and attitude never let up, so I am extremely proud of their efforts and how far we have come since the beginning of 2018. Thanks also to the parents for all their hard work in getting us to Australia and looking after me and the boys.

- Sam

Results

Pool Play:

3-3 Draw Vs EFA Eagles Vic

4-2 Win vs Sydney Metro

4-1 Loss vs Sunshine Coast

6-4 Loss vs Melbourne Dragons

4-2 Win vs North lakes

5-5 Draw vs FFAA Peak Academy NSW

3-2 Win vs Gold Coast

Quarter Final

7-3 Loss Vs East City

East City had scored 81 goals and conceded just 2 goals in their previous 7 pool play games and ending up as eventual tournament winners.

Players:

- Otis Meyers

- Thomas Watson

- Cameron Cotton

- Cameron Blondell

- Caden Goodmanson

- Ben GreenhalghUF

- Kwadwo Amoafo

- Sena Benseman

- Joe Allen

Coach - Sam Fowler

Manager - Darren Meyers