COWHC Ladies 1s vs Guildford 2s - 13 February 2016

After last week’s defeat, the Ladies 1s were keen to get back to winning ways. Our previous encounter with Guildford had ended in a comfortable victory, so i think it’s fair to say we turned up expecting to come away with some points. Sadly it wasn’t to be.

From the first whistle, it was obvious that this was a very different group of players to those we had played just a few months ago. They were young, skilled and extremely organised, all of which contributed to two early Guildford goals.

Once we had recovered from our initial shock, we were able to take more control of the game. Super Captain Lena (who had stepped out of her usual defensive position and into midfield) created a number of good attacking chances, the best of which resulted in a perfectly positioned Claire deflecting the ball agonising wide of the left post. In defence Dicko carefully listened to Kate’s wise words and made several brilliant tackles to break down Guildford’s attacking triangles.

A number of this season’s matches have been impacted by dubious umpiring decisions - this was most definitely one of them! This impact was felt most after a Guildford player flattened Becky in our own half, gifting the home side a third goal. Of course we let our thoughts known but the protests fell on deaf ears. Rachel even politely offered to buy the umpire some new glasses, however her generosity was only rewarded with a green card.

After a half time huddle in the hut we came out raring to go, determined to learn from our first-half mistakes and to give a much stronger second-half performance. That we did - Santy and LBell provided great support in defence to absorb Guildford’s pressure, Emma and Kat ran tirelessly up and down the wings, Becky remained extremely calm despite being targeted by Guildford’s defence, and Nicky and Claire were dangerous on the counter-attack. The most memorable moments of the second half came from goalkeeper Kate who spectacularly took out most of Guildford’s attack whilst providing ‘incisive and direct commentary on the Umpire’s shortcomings’.

Despite only having 11 players in the second half, we battled right to the end, and were rewarded with a late goal scored by Becky (last goal wins right?). Overall it was one of those games where the luck simply wasn’t with us. Everyone on the pitch gave 100% and there were lots of positives to take away from the match including some great counter-attacking play and the fact that we still haven’t conceded from a short corner in 2016. Things to work on for next time: a short corner routine for when we are missing our star striker Alex, and not passing to the opposition on 16s (i’m mentioning no names!)

The team was: Kate, Santy, LBell, Dicko, Kat, Lena, Rachel, Chloe (first half), Emma, Becky, Nicky and Claire

PoM votes were: 0.5 for Nicky and Santy, 1.5 for Dicko and LBell, 2.5 for Kate and Lena, and 4 for the incredibly calm Becky

Thank you to Mummy and Daddy Forshaw, and Georgie for coming to support us in a very cold and wet Guildford.