Goal Fest!

From Match Day Reporter Jess Stewart:

A beautiful crisp autumn morning on Saturday saw Reigate Ladies 2s playing away at Surbiton. Everyone turned up in body although there were a few hangovers and some niggling injuries threatening our form.
After a quick theory lesson from Kaz and Linds, we warmed up in the sunshine. We knew that Surbiton would be well-drilled and disciplined so we’d need to hold our formation and play our best hockey to win. Word of the day was, of course, win!

We started well, with Freya finding herself in front of an open goal within the first five minutes. She almost hesitated before slotting it cooly and calmly away. Yay, we were off! The team was playing well and all of the training and practising our formation was now paying off. About five minutes later, Freya scored another goal, this time drilling it past the defence and keeper. Two nil. Confidence was high and we created chances by working the ball up the wings and playing around Surbiton. The oppo was becoming frustrated but kept trying to find a way through. We managed to close them down on nearly every occasion and work the ball swiftly back to the other end.

Linds’ groin went after about 15 minutes (or was it the fact that she was massively hungover!?) so Jess joined Kaz in defence, in front of Camilla. The team was playing fluidly and everyone was having a great game. The halfs of Rache and Woolfy played it up the wings to Bridge, Harriet and Ali K on the left and Karen and Rose on the right. Ang had plenty of space in the middle to distribute the ball and build the play. There was great movement with people running off the ball and passing into space.

We went into half time 2-0 up and knew we had to keep our heads as Surbiton would come out fighting.

Ali K added to our haul with a fab strike off a short that slammed into the backboard. About five minutes later she created something from nothing by almost taking the ball off the keeper’s pads to put it away. Predatory! And a well-deserved man of the match for her too.
We frustrated their attack and tackled strongly to have most of the possession. There was great short and long play, it was probably the best we have played as a team this season. Although it was lovely to see the sun it made it difficult to see half of the pitch, especially with Reigate’s black shirts so we needed to communicate to keep hold of the ball.

We had a funny 20 minutes towards the end as we tired and they capitalised with a goal they worked up the right wing. We held out until the final whistle but a short was given just as it went – very annoyingly they scored. Jess was incandescent with herself for not taking the injector out properly (swearing, stick throwing etc – sorry guys). BUT we won, we had three points and were staying at the top of the table.