Sporty and Brainy!!

By Match Reporter Extraordinaire Jess Stewart...

Week four of the league arrived and we were up against Mid Surrey, who had not lost so far this season. To be fair, Reigate has only lost one game since September with the team starting to really gel and the results reflecting that.

It was a rainy muggy day as the Reigate Ladies started to trickle in, all except one. Quelle surprise, Woolfy had gone to the wrong pitch. Luckily she called and was able to arrive in plenty of time despite nearly having a panic attack.

We knew from the warm up that they had some skilful players and speed. But we had a good team out, plenty of subs and supporters on the sideline – yay for coach Sally, Jackie, Ali K, Camilla and Tiger. Win was word of the day. We were feeling confident and started off pressing up and spent the first ten minutes in their half.

Their strongest players were the forwards and the defence was pretty easy to penetrate, meaning we had plenty of shots on goal in the first half but couldn’t quite convert them into goals. They also had a couple breaks up the pitch and looked dangerous when they were bringing the ball into our end. One shot on goal was saved brilliantly by Sally but the rebound feel to their centre forward. Sally hit the deck and Jess went to the line behind her but got a hit to the jaw accidently from our goalie’s stick. Ouch.

The half continued with each team having a chances but not making anything of them. The only other event was Mid Surrey getting a green card from Porter for a stick above shoulder level.
Half time came and there was no score. Each team went to their ends and regrouped. We knew we were playing well and if we maintained composure then eventually the goals would come. We also knew we couldn’t make any mistakes at the back or we would be punished by their handy strikers.

We went into the second half strongly and avoided having that funny five minutes we sometimes have at the restart. We played it up the field and into the D with Hetti, Freya, Rose, Lucy, Harriet and Anna all working well together and passing the ball around nicely. Two great goals from Anna came within 20 minutes and we dug in to protect our lead, playing attacking hockey up the wings and trying to squash the forwards if they came at us. The midfield of Ang, Bridget, Woolfy, Stacy and Karen (who ended up on the wrong side of the pitch) helped keep the ball up towards the oppo’s end and away from our goal but as we tired in the last ten minutes they managed to penetrate a few times. Mid Surrey were getting frustrated and there were two more greens for their defence for another stick above shoulder height and I think for back chat from their own umpire. Lucy was pretty lucky to avoid one as well ;-).

We managed to keep it out and off to the sides, with Kaz playing strongly in defence, until the last five minutes when Porter gave a short for a pretty awesome obstruction by Jess (!), which they annoyingly managed to score. Grr. The remaining minutes and seconds passed agonisingly slowly as we ran down the clock keeping it out wide and as high up the pitch as possible.