Posh U18s suffer defeat in the opening game of the league campaign.
Peterborough United U18s fell to defeat in their opening game of the Under-18s Professional Development League campaign with a 2-1 loss to Swansea City on Saturday morning at Landore.
The first chance of the game fell to the hosts as Aimar Govea’s free-kick was flicked on to Callum Deacon by Jack Fanning, but the latter saw his shot palmed away for a corner. George Holley saw an effort cleared off the line from Deacon as Posh pushed for an opener in the opening stages.
Posh went inches away from breaking the deadlock as Harley Mills’ free-kick went narrowly wide before Holley's strike from distance clipped the near post. Seconds into the second half, The Swans’ goalkeeper was called into action, producing a good save to prevent Dennis Kelmendi’s curled effort.
However, it was the hosts who broke the deadlock as Govea floated ball to the back-post was met by Thomas Woodward and he found the back of the net on the stretch. Hernia-Kamau went close to doubling the Swans' lead, but his chipped effort was blocked by Noah Freeman.
The Swans doubled their lead on 83 minutes as some quick footwork from Govea allowed him enough space to fire the ball into the top corner. In the closing stages of the game, Mills struck the woodwork before Posh were awarded a penalty and Winters converted from the spot to cut the deficit.
Head of Academy Professional Development Phase Coach, Jamal Campbell-Ryce, said: “It was a disappointing result for us, but we won’t get too carried away as it was the first game of the season. It has been a really good pre-season for the players, in having a good mixture of teams, but everything we worked on during pre-season wasn’t shown in the game at the weekend.
“We didn’t control the game, wasn’t ruthless or played within our structure and when I’m overseeing the under 21s or under 18s, it isn’t about the result but more of our performance. However, it’s the first game of the season and we have already done our analysis on the game, but the good thing about football is we have another game on Saturday.”
Posh XI: West, Freeman, Mills, Unwin, Gilbert, Toynton, Kelemendi, Marcon, Winters, Holley, Ntege.
Subs: Beech, Changunda, Davies, Odei-Larbi.