COWHC Ladies 1s vs Wayfarers 5 - 23 January 2016

With last week's league match against Guildford cancelled because of a frozen pitch, this was the first league encounter of 2016 and, fired up by the nlp tones of Rachel's dad, we were determined to both avenge the horrible October encounter against Wayfarers 5s and to enjoy ourselves. Oh, and to use our brains, as clearly advised by Kate.

We know the first 10 minutes is not always our finest hour (if you'll excuse the mixed metaphors) but this week we threw down a marker to Wayfarers with sustained attacks and with Rachel coming very close to an early goal at the far post. Some things didn't change from the last encounter: they belted it out of defence (but we were ready for this and it actually didn't give them much advantage) and their midfield griped, appealed and hacked their way through the match (but Finny was on them from the start and Rachel, Becky and Alex were paragons of virtue throughout).

We were really good today. Everyone threw themselves into the match, with LBell stepping up to midfield and Lena proving completely impassable in defence ("but we can't get past her" moaned their attack as Lena stopped each one in their tracks ...) Caitlin brought her super sticky stick to the match and Kate roared her way through a myriad of saves.

The advantage ebbed and flowed today and there were periods when we allowed Wayfarers to dominate. But our battling spirit shone through and, after a goalless first half, we slammed home a goal in the opening minutes of the second half to take the lead from a goalmouth melee (not sure who scored it - I was too busy celebrating - was it Andrea or Caitlin?) Wayfarers pinched back a goal midway through the second half which made for a tense final quarter. Sustained attacking play led to a COWs short corner; a textbook manoeuvre from Caitlin and Becky left a clear shot for Alex to fire home. The match closed with a 2-1 victory for the mighty COWs and an invaluable 3 points to add to our league total.

Thanks to Finny for umpiring so well - it made such a difference from what we experienced in our away fixture against this team. The man flu claimed Hoops from sideline duties, so we won just to make him feel better.

The team was: Kate, Santy, LBell, Lena, Kat, Dicko, Lorraine, Alex, Becky, Rachel, Andrea, Emma and Caitlin.

PoM votes were: 0.5 for LBell, 1 each for Kate, Caitlin and Rachel, 4 for Alex and 4.5 (and a very well deserved PoM) to super-captain Lena.