COWHC Ladies 2s vs Epsom Ladies 5s - 04th March 2017

In the absence of Jade (who is receiving weekly match report duty until she actually does it! Still waiting Jade....) I am in the firing line for this week's missive.

A ridiculously early start saw the L2 WhatsApp group surprisingly quiet, clearly no one functions before 10:00 and so 8:45 meet was never going to go well. 8:50 saw Lisa, Vegan Princess and Whatever at Astro 2 in Epsom College with no one else around. This didn't feel right and indeed it wasn't. After a bit of negotiation the correct pitch was located just over the hill.

Last week's game still haunting us, we were determined to at least play as a team this week. Winning the toss we made an excellent start. Unfortunately we conceded the first, but unlike previous games we kept heads up and continued to press leaving it 1-0 at half time.

A inspiring team talk from El Capitano reminding us of width saw us start the second half with a spring in our step. Kirsty managed to get the ball past their keeper (and only a minor early celebration...) 1-1.

Sadly, despite much running (don't think fitbit was able to keep up with the amount of steps we were doing) and some brilliant play we conceded 2 more. It was constantly back and forth with them getting some breaks enabling them to get some great strikes in. And so it ended 3-1; a more even match than the scoreline suggests and with some good play by both sides.

Some special mentions:

* Martin for halting his geocaching and arriving only 2mins after push-back for umpiring duties
* Mikey B for the wrong directions...meaning that VP, Lisa and Whatever were neither at the correct pitch or the pitch we were directed to - somehow they found the third option of two....
* Hoops for announcing the weekend's fixtures after we had finish thus resulting in our many followers missing the game
* Helen - hope you feel better soon sweetie
*Mrs B for her camera action even if it was whilst we were stuffing our faces with restorative haribo
* Netty for acting as team manager
* The lovely oppo umpire with his taking turns on 50:50 decisions even if he did spend his time on the phone
* Pavot's pivoting
* The friendly Epsom team; and
* Kirsty for her upright reverse stop and subsequent uprigjt reverse goal....Good thing Rochie wasn't around to enforce a punishment run.

By the way it was Nicky on taker!