Ladies’ 2s success over Southampton

Southampton made the journey north to face the Ladies 2s at BRN, who were keen to get their stop-start season back on track. The game started well for the 2s, playing some lovely passing hockey and dominating early passages of play. After about 5 minutes Southampton were unfortunate to lose one of their players with a nasty head injury, but the away side seemed to respond well and created some excellent chances in the next fifteen minutes. However they found keeper Lydia on fine form and the game stayed goalless. They even won a flick, but somehow managed to put it wide. Southampton were to regret these missed chances, as shortly after Odders scored a cracker, smashing home from the top of the D on her backhand. Nice. The rest of the half wasn’t the prettiest hockey from the home side, which certainly warranted the “firm” words from Coach Wilko at half time.

The response from the 2s was superb, and only a few minutes into the second half Sandra rounded the keeper superbly and took a backhand strike on goal. I’ve been toying with whether to say that her superb strike was going just wide, and Kathryn deflected it in. But the reality is that Sandra completely mishit it and she was very grateful that Kathryn was on the far post to pull it down out of the sky and pop it into the goal. The next goal was equally comical, with right half Rosie crossing from the edge of the D, about a metre off the baseline. But somehow it ended up going straight in the goal, no deflections, just straight in. Slightly odd, but they all count. Katie added another a few moments later, keeping her composure and spinning in front of the keeper and slotting home. And then Katie added a fifth shortly after with a tidy deflection from Odders’ strike. 5-0. What I haven’t really mentioned is that Southampton did have quite a few corners and decent chances, so the 2s defence definitely had to work for their clean sheet. I also haven’t mentioned how classy and hard working Minners was in the midfield, thoroughly deserving of her Player of the Match award, shared with Katie. Very satisfying day at the office all round!