COWHC Ladies 1s vs. Old Cranleighans - 12 March 2016

Oh well. We gave it our all. The neutral observer would look at that scoreline and say a 1-0 defeat came against the run of play. And they'd be right. This was a must win game for the tireless warriors of COWHC Ladies 1s, and we were not going to go down without a fight. And fight we did, in a totally controlled fashion. LBell and Kat stepped up to midfield positions, and we played 3 upfront to maximise attacking opportunities. This approach reaped its rewards, with Kate controlling the D and the back line of Lena, Dicko and Santy luring OCs onto their open stick tackles. OCs marking was tight across the middle of the pitch, but Becky jabbed her way into many strong positions, and Amelia and Andrea used the width of the pitch to create dangerous opportunities. Rachel flung herself at every opportunity, and Nicky wove her way repeatedly into the D. But OCs did not yield and they sneaked an irritating goal early in the second half. The clock ticked down and still we ran and ran; OCs tempers' frayed, their appeals got more frequent, their tackles got wilder; still we ran and ran but, alas, ran out of time before we could equalise for a crucial league point.

It's been a topsy turvy season - but more of that in the end of season report - but throughout it all we know that two truths have shone through: (a) when we get the simple things right, we play awesome hockey and (b) to play through a relegation season and get to the end of it still as a strongly bonded unit who enjoy each other's company and give 100% for each other is the real reason why we come out every Saturday. Onward and upwards, Mighty COWs, onwards and upwards.

Thanks to Keith for his strong umpiring, to Hoops for seeing us through to the end of the season with encouragement and warmth (unlike the example set by the OCs coach this week) and to the sun for shining for our final league fixture of 2015/16.

The team was: Kate, Lena, Dicko, Santy, Kat, LBell, Becky, Alex, Rachel, Nicky, Andrea and Amelia.

PoM votes were: 0.5 each for Dicko and Kat, 1 for Andrea, LBell and Nicky, 1.5 each for Alex and Amelia, and 3 each for Lena and Becky.