With so many supporters coming to watch our match on Saturday and with a stand-in coach, in the form of Huggy, we could not let them down so a win or at least a draw was on order. The initial first 15 mins of the match Wanderers came out hard, applying pressure on our defence from the whistle. But we managed to get back our confidence and our style of play – increase in short sharp passes, triangular passes and those long balls up to Claude and Dani on the wings for them to take on the Wanderer’s defence. We were much tighter in defence, staying on our players and leaving the player with the ball for Nettie to sweep up.
After a motivational talk from both Huggy and Liney at half time (and added haribo and jellybabies!), we knew that we had it in us to win this match. Hannah used her height to reach to snatch and apply pressure to the opponents, Claude did some fantastic leads up front and Dani always went for the posts in the D (which has been one of our weaknesses in the past). Both Sarah and Zoe linked well with each other, helping each other when they got into difficulty and Cat supported Collette when trying to get the ball out of the corner. About 10 minutes into the 2nd half we took the lead – a very well worked ball from the right hand of the D, to the top and fired in towards the goal where Dani thumped it home. However, our lead did not last long Wanderers equalled the score at a short corner within 5 minutes. Zoe R kept us in the game too many times to count, in both 1st and 2nd half by saving the ball on the line and worked well with Nettie shadowing their players off the pitch, unable to make the pass across. Sam was as solid as ever in goal, even with a few smothering of the ball here and there!
Well done everyone for your effort, we couldn’t have asked for any more. As Liney said – we have managed to double our points!!! If we can play like that next Saturday against Cheam, then we should be seeing us definitely move up the league.
Well done to Sarah for getting MOM – very well deserved for all your running and skill!