Women’s 2s 2 - 1 Slough (H)
By Josie Hippe
After the rains of the past week, and the Wednesday drenching, we (Women’s 2s) were blessed with wall to wall sunshine at Sugden Road this Saturday for the annual slogfest with Slough.
Pre match team talks from both Will and Roro empathised the need for the young heads to stay cool, I clearly wasn’t listening (see end of match report).
After applying suncream, too ensure we always remain young (don’t want any wrinkles) we headed out for the warm-up. Unfortunately nothing to report on that!
Then the battle commenced, after some attempts of nice passing hockey we let Slough score a goal.
Anyway, back to square one albeit a goal down, we showed resilience, passion and composure… well perhaps not in the D. Our superior flowing passing hockey allowed us to dominate and we had some beautiful passages of outlet from our many defenders and some superb screen play from Lillie and Katie (both whom deserve a shoutout). We had many many many many counter attacks and chances but unfortunately couldn’t score.
On rolled the second half, we continued to play as the better team and Slough began to tire and showing occasional signs of frustration. Eventually after a couple of cards being thrown around by the umpires, including one for Ozzy, we scored. A beautiful passage of hockey on the counter, allowed Amie to demonstrate her scoring prowess.
Then came the final quarter, we increased the pressure on Slough and we saw the cracks beginning to appear, allowing us to win a corner. After many attempts of corners throughout the game one finally paid off for Tilly to tap in. However, Slough claimed foul play (the video suggests otherwise). Slough verbalised their disgust, using language not suited to the younger generation…
The last couple of minutes saw us win another corner. Wilting under the pressure the injector (me) fluffed it, managing to move the ball all of two metres. In the stress of the moment, distracted by the helicopter flying over head, I gave away a “tactical card” giving myself as shot at DOD.
Finally the whistle blew to end a somewhat stressful game (we could’ve made it easier for ourselves). The afternoon ended with a fun social and the voting of DOD and POM, of which I am the proud recipient of both.
Roll on next week…