COWHC Ladies 2s vs Berrylands - 18th Nov 2017

When the captain and her vice both have to wash their beautiful COW imprinted white shirts last minute there might be a few questions floating around how prepared this COWs team were….add in to that there only being a handful of players at the meet time and I think Rochie was wondering if any of us were listening at the team talk on Tuesday. Prep was definitely not our middle name this week.

Whistle went more or less on time even though our oppo were missing their captain; with Umpire Griff, Coachie Rochie and Chief Cheerleader Joe all needing to dash at the end for their match, no time to hang around. And so we went at them. They had the odd pick, corresponding run with the ball and venture into our D but we were definitely on the front foot and pressing them hard. Forsh gave us all some lessons on how to get the ball onto their foot in the D. Goal 1 was courtesy of Mrs Mellor and her awesome post skills following a beautiful cross in (alcohol has muddled brain as to who it was from, but I KNOW it was beautiful cos everything we do is #fact). 1-0 COWS

Team talk at half time was short and sweet – keep doing what you are doing with a bit of width. Fuelled by the Berries’ kindly provided oranges we started the second half.

The first 5minutes of the second half can be summed up by Lisa’s quote of “What has happened ladies, this is very messy” which even the oppo’s umpire agreed with (“just what I was thinking” to be exact!)! I think there was something in those oranges because frankly we were utterly shambolic. But we pulled it together, got our heads back in the game and a lovely counterattack up the left wing enabled us to reshape. Thankfully we got another short which Naomi managed to convert, getting the ball passed the keeper to score her first COWs goal. 2-0 COWS

They then got a series of shorts which was a bit meh; Whatever broke one of our new faces masks (its ok AJ its just a bit of padding…); we had a few counting issues when we tried to stick 6 behind the line and then everyone tried to go back to the half way but we didn’t let the get the ball passed us, so all was good (there may have been the odd nervy moment as we watched some sail passed and bounce off the post or sail wide). And off the back of one of the shorts we had another fantastic counterattack which was at the speed of light and turned Poppy from super bridesmaid (the number of assists she has this season is phenomenal) into the bride as she calmly slotted the ball passed their keeps. 3-0 COWS

With calm heads we kept on playing our game – short sharp passing, channelling the ball, being generally awesome (and so modest….I write this after a couple of beverages). And finally the final whistle – 2nd in the league, positive goal difference and POM to the team cos everyone played their hardest and left it on the pitch.

Tuesday training, along with pure determination and desire is clearly paying off with: solid performances seen in the defence formed of Whatever, Leggs, Becca and HowHard with cat like skills, as ever, from Lisa for those ones that got through; supportive and superior stick skills in our mids featuring Maddy, Robbo, Naomi, Andrea and Forsh; and the deft running and ball hunting of Poppy, Sharon and Claire A. Gold stars to everyone for today (and many drinks in the evening to celebrate).

Thanks to Umpire Griff (and indeed the oppo umpire) for a really fair and balanced game, with some excellent use of advantage as someone kicked the ball for the 50th time; Coachie Rochie for braving the damp to run the sideline; and sidekick coach/chief cheerleader Joe for being there to cheer us on/warm up Lisa/get upset about mayonnaise in his sandwich which he discovered when it was half eaten. Rain please stop making an appearance during matches, it is most unwelcome.