Wet start to L2s’ win over Henley

The day started pretty dark, gloomy and very, very wet! Not only had Rosie forgotten our match shirts (don’t worry, that was the automatic DOD vote!), the heavens opened just as we went to warm up. With the speaker stashed in Spenny’s coat whilst running around the pitch, nothing was going to slow down the terrific 2’s mood.

Warm up done and the rain had surpassed, how typical! Scragg had the tunes blazing and our warmup was vocal and energetic. The vibes were immaculate. We were ready!

The match started well as we carried those awesome vibes through from the warmup into the game. We worked our way relentlessly down the pitch into Henley’s D and won a short. The first short corner of the game resulted in a re-award. Rosie stepped up to the plate to try and redeem her shirt mishap. Of course, she scored a great drag flick. The keeper had no chance! Great corner. 1-0 Hawks.

5 minutes later and some slick passing through pretty much the whole team resulted in another goal! Some great team build up play meant Sandra sent it firing into Henley’s goal. 2-0! The first half was full of hard work and grit from Hawks as we maintained most of the possession. 10 minutes before the end of the first half, a powerful slap from Lucy sent the ball into the D, which was heading Beth’s way. Some rapid reaction times meant we had scored again. A great deflection from Beth. 3-0 at halftime!

Some motivating half time chat from Wilko got our wheels spinning for the second half. Henley had stepped up their game and had come back fighting. Their high press put us under a bit of pressure, and they optimised on this whilst we tried to adapt. A goal from Henley from brewing and they were successful. 3-1 at 15 minutes into the second half.

Hawks had managed to adapt to the high press after some useful exclamations from Wilko on the side-line. Back to organising our ways, we re-aligned our shape and had a few attacks one after another in a short amount of time. Unlucky to not score, we exploited the baseline run. Odders’ and Rosie’s silky skills opened up a path for a shot on goal. The ball was pulled back to the P spot where Spenny was waiting to send one home. 4-1! There was 10 minutes to go.

Henley kept fighting and forced a few mistakes out of us, but we kept going! With a couple of minutes left of the clock, Henley snuck through our press and scored another goal. 4-2. With the seconds ticking away, Hawks were relieved to hear that final whistle after a long and hard final push.

A great game finishing 4-2 to Hawks. Mom was Lydia after some amazing saves that kept us ahead, especially a 1v1! DOD was, of course, Rosie.

Thanks to Clive for the excellent photos.