Ladies 5s 5 - 2 Old Kingstonians 1s (H)
By Charlotte Gallagher
POM: Ozzy and Simmi
DOD: Charlotte for wearing my skirt the wrong way round… leaving my water bottle three hours after I’d got it back from the last match… I’m sure the list is endless.
We went into the match feeling confident that we had begun to gel after a good win last week and relieved we had Tarek this week to manage the subs and give us some of his tactical gems to focus on in the first half.
We started much as we had before, some strong possession led to us winning a short corner and up steps Biffa, my alter-ego, to put away a straight strike after an accurate injection and perfect stop.
It did not take too long before we doubled our lead from another short corner. Lisa ignored whatever words of wisdom I had imparted by way of strategy and received the ball on the left and put it past the goalie with ease… maybe, I’m finding I can only really remember what I did in the game… did I mention I scored? #allaboutme.
I feel like the next was a great drive from Ozzy down the left and a backhand we watched in awe that left Old Kingstonian heads dropping low as she went on to continue to create havoc around their star player in the middle with her relentless, typical Osborne spirited hassling.
Tarek reaffirmed some of the key points we have been trying to develop over the last couple of weeks – drive down to the baselines, pass around players quicker and switch play more. Some of this we did well in the second half, but defensively we were guilty of being a little complacent.
We went on to score a classic Ruth Fraser goal from the penalty sport area… again, I think. We then conceded a scrappy goal where we failed to clear the ball out and their midfield weapon stepped up to fire a rocket in from the top right… if you’re looking from the GK’s position anyway.
Okay, so I’m confident that I remember the last goal! Again Ozzy put us all to shame by following Tarek’s instructions to a T and skilled her way along the left hand baseline to cut the ball back to be met by Claire after her incisive run into the D from the right. Alas it did not finish there, we were slightly sloppy with our marking and I’ve got to take the hit, I probably could have cut out the cross, but a rogue player at the back post slotted home OKs’ second and with the final whistle moments later we left the field feeling more deflated than we should. We could have retained possession better in the second half but the major positives are that we are scoring goals and that those goals are coming from different sources.
Bring on the next Spencer team next week, I feel some revenge coming.