Disappointing loss for the Ladies 5s

A disappointing loss this week! Our match was bright and early Saturday and we were obviously not awake when we got on the pitch. They had first push back and the came out hard and we were half asleep. They pushed from the off and made the most of our simple mistakes and slow minds. Before we knew it we were defending our first short corner, beautifully cleared by the defence team. But Amersham kept the pressure on and before we knew it we were in a series of short corners. The team of Maddie, Helen, Hayley and team Jess cleared the next two shorts but they scored off their third short to take them 1-0 up. This seemed to give us a shock and we stepped up our play. There was some great work in the middle section by Catrin and Jess and Macy seemed to be everywhere she needed to be. Rippon too made some great runs and had at least 2 attempts on goal but both found the pads of their keeper. They countered with yet another short which was beautifully cleared by Helen and another cleared by Hayley. But we left players loose in the D by not man marking and they made the most of this with yet another goal!

We came off at half time a little despondent, it was a very defensive game from the off which caught us by surprise. We had a team talk by Ruth at half time her advice was get back and square and don’t just hit it, and to also increase our work rate and not stand off!

This seemed to work as we made the most of pushback and came out strong and awake! We started off with yet another short once again cleared by Helen. Everyone started defending and we started going back together as a team. Amersham tried and tried to score and Maddie made some great saves, we also had some great clears by both Jess’. We were much better man marking and following up every ball unfortunately the only time we didn’t do this they scored again to bring it 0-3!

But the 5s are never truly down and out. We stepped our game up again and went for every ball with the midfield working hard to get the ball up the pitch, especially Macy who really had a fire in her belly. Myself, Annabel, Becca and Rippon were not willing to wait for the ball to come to us and worked hard to get the ball up the pitch to the D. This resulted in a short corner, it went to Jess W who slipped it to Jess D and nicely tapped in by Pippa who’d rushed to the post after her push in. A real text book short corner and the highlight of the game. But it was too little too late and we had to settle for a disappointing 1-3 loss.

Macy got Man of the Match for her hardwork rate and determintation, closely followed by Maddie who did a fantastic job this week stepping in to goal.