Ladies 5s 0 - 1 Wallingford

This match can be summed up by the infamous Charles Dickens, "it was the best of times it was the worst of times"! A slight exageration but it certainly was one of our toughest matches. The tone for the match was set writhin the first few seconds. The ball went off the sideline and he ball was called for Wallingford, their coach told the umpire it came off one of their sticks but it still went against us. And so the match continued in this vein, as someone said after it could have been an advert for Specsavers

Wallingford pushed us time and time again, we had over five defensive short corners. Out of these they managed to convert the second with a goal even Maddie Hinch wouldn't have stopped, but Emily sure tried. She was very much in action in her debut match and made some great saves. All our defenders certainly worked hard. We saw some great defensive play from team Jess, Jodie, Hayley and Katie. The girls cleared the ball out of the D time and time again, with some great high balls by Jess W really keeping us in the game.

We saw also some great play from the midfielders, Pippa, Catrin, Sophie who tried to keep the ball out on the wings and up the pitch. There were some brilliant mom bets in the half. One of our first came from a lovely one two by Pippa and Charlie but we were a bit too disorganised in the D to make the most of it. Another brilliant push came from a big hit from Jess to Maisie who then did an amazing arial to Annabel who showed great skill going around players and driving in to the D. This lead to 2 attacking short corners. On the other side of the pitch our last debut player, Stella, was making her presence felt too. It was like little and large but she was not fazed no matter what size player she took on. We saw some great skills from Maddie and Stella passing to each other up the pitch. Wallingford were very good at closing our attempt downs but it didn't stop us trying.

Half time gave us a chance for a breather and to focus on what we needed to do. Wallingford may have been stronger in the first half but we all know the fives are never truly down and out!

Wallingford continued the offensive in the start of the second half with press after press after press. Some of these resulted in short corners but all were cleared by our defensive line and Emily. Jess D found her mojo and was on fire in her diamond position showing great skill clearing it out to the wings several times.
We began to tire and our heads dropped with the constant negativity from the other side. It seemed that we couldn't get the ball out of our defensive half.

But gradually we became more focussed and started playing proper team hockey. Maisie got on the pitch and her energy really lifted the whole team. Her and Sophie became the dynamic duo. Maisie would drive it up the pitch and Sophie would shoot it at goal. Sophie got very frustrated that they weren't on target but we didn't see to have the right number of bodies in the D as we were playing such a defensive game. It was good to see despite us being under such pressure we were still going on the offensive.

We were all grateful to hear the final whistle go and that we had played much better in the second half. I was proud that every member of the team kept their cool during the game under great duress. All our four new players, Charlie, Emily, Maisie and Stella got Man of the Match. They all fitted in seemlessly with the team and you would never have known this was the debut matches.