Let Battle Commence!

Match day reporter extraordinaire Jess swapped Reigate for the Alps and Après ski so I’m standing in for one week only – apologies in advance!

With winning ways restored against Wanderers last week a slightly depleted 2s team were ready to keep the league form going (6 wins in a row). The lights of NYC were calling Bridget, Jess made her way to the Alps and the services of Freyja, Lucy and Harriet were borrowed for the week.

With a difficult away game at Richmond in October the word of the day was “FIGHT”, we knew that to get a win we would need to battle for 70mins for all 3 points. From the first whistle we put the pressure on playing high up the pitch however Richmond were organised and made it difficult to breakdown. Reigate worked the ball up with pitch well with Woolfy and Emma supporting the attacking moves of Hannah, Karen, Hettie, Rose and Ali.

Midway through the first half Richmond received a yellow card for raising the stick above the head to trap the ball.
The debut partnership of Lindsey and Siobhan kept the Richmond attack at bay; there were a couple of breakaways that caused momentary scares. Camilla made a good save using her stick to take the ball off the attacker.

Reigate had a number of short corners throughout the first half, with the key parts of our normal short corner routine MIA we went for improvisation! It finally paid off a couple of minutes before half time. Stacy pushed out to Rose, a quick one two with Hannah and the shot on target was saved by the keeper. It wasn’t cleared far enough and Stacy was straight onto the rebound making no mistake from 3yards out, 1-0 Reigate! Relief all round we got the lead we deserved after dominating the first half.

Captain Kaz was cheering us on from the side line having not recovering from a “deadly” virus (slight exaggeration). Leading the half time talk we were told to stretch the game and use the width to work our way round a crowded midfield and manoeuvre our way out of Stacy’s zig zag runs!!
In the second half Izzy continued causing trouble on the right wing with their defence struggling to cope with her pace. Clare, Emma and Ang worked well distributing the ball out to the wings and the inners continuing to support the attacks.

Reigate went 2-0 up but celebrations were cut short as the goal was disallowed, Ali was deemed to be obstructing the defender when Rose beat the keeper with a lovely reverse shot into the top right hand corner. Unlucky moment but we battled on.
Camilla made 4 great saves in the second half, in the words of Rose, epic sliding saves for two one on ones and two saves from open play. Each time the ball was well cleared by Lindsey, Siobhan or Camilla to start another attacking move.

The second goal finally came with a debut goal from Hannah, giving Reigate some breathing space. Stacy picked the ball up on the left passed to ball to Rose who raced down the right and crossed the ball to Hannah who took a shot from the top of the D.

Richmond got their 3rd short corner of the game in the final minute and unfortunately got a goal back. But it was too late Reigate walked away with a well fought and fully deserved 3 points, keeping our spot at top of the table. Rose was voted MOM with great performance tormenting the Richmond defence and scoring a brilliant but disallowed goal.

The 2s are away next week but on the 8th Feb we are home to Wayfarers (2nd in the league) at Reigate School, 12.30pm pushback. We’d really appreciate as much support as possible for the top of the table clash!
ith winning ways restored against Wanderers last week a slightly depleted 2s team.....