Top of the League!

Match report from superstar reporter Jess Stewart.....

Camilla had broken down at the wrong end of the A217 and so Rache was going in goal, all was fine until she realised that the kickers had not been returned with the rest of the kit when she had lent it out. This was not good. Luckily, one of the RGS teachers was on site because of the school rugby matches and managed to find a pair in their store. Phew. Word of the day was ‘Win’.

Addiscombe are near the bottom of the table and we were sitting in third with only two points separating us from the leader. Nevertheless, we knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy game and had been told to prepare for a high pace match. And so it was. Straight from push back it was a fairly evenly matched game.

Kaz, as always, held firm at the back. Lindsay, promoted from the 5s, had stolen Jess’s position for the day at left back and Jess pushed up to left half to run around a bit. Ang had a cracking game working the midfield, with lots of space to pass it out and up. The front line of Lucy, Freya, Issy, Harriet, Emma and Karen constantly pressed and kept the pressure up on their defence, who were pretty solid. Halfs, Bridget and Woolfy, used the wings solidly throughout the game to work the ball forward and used their fitness to get back and help defend when Linds decided to run all the way up the pitch.

Half time came with no score on either side. Everyone was wet and a bit frustrated that we hadn’t scored. Kaz’s half time talk accurately made the point; we were doing the basics badly but the hard stuff really well. We needed to slow it down and pass it around them, not through them.

Camilla had thankfully arrived and so took over the goal and Rache came on at centre forward. We played much better hockey at a faster pace after the break. We tightened our formation and took it up a gear. We had most of the possession in the second half and Rache slotted one away a few minutes into the second half. Oosh! This gave us a bit of breathing space and we played really positively afterwards to create chances time and again.

There was a bit of movement up front as we worked the subs but everyone played good attacking hockey. We built it up again and again and worked it into their D. Although we didn’t score any more goals, we kept up the attack and gave Addiscombe very few chances. They were tiring but still kept coming and Camilla came out and took people down a few times. We gave a way a short towards the end, although we weren’t all sure it really was a short, but the back line worked well to keep it out, with Woolfy taking the ball off the striker at the top of the D.

We looked much better in the second half and held our shape. Our fitness and good size squad means that we are now ending games with fuel in the tank. We were better at moving into space but still tend to be a bit static towards the end when we should rack it up a notch and really put the oppo away.

This week the two teams in front of us, Cheam and Barnes, had losses so these three lovely points puts us at the top of the league! Well played girls. Bring on next week! (Oh and Linds and Woolfy have formed a mutual appreciation society.)