Ladies’ 4s fall to Thame

With some trepidation the Ladies 4’s travelled away to Thame to play their first league game. History tells us that this was always going to be a feisty game; both sides with some strong physical players and to be honest the Ladies 4’s usually end coming off worse. However, this detail was not in the mindset of those playing their debut games.

As the game progressed, we started to settle into our roles, Becky, Clare and Vicky i.e. the aforementioned ‘strong physical players’ kept a solid defensive line which, in turn, provided confidence further up the field. The combination of Caz, Catherine (unofficially – the engine room) and Jess were able to send quality balls up the pitch. Evie, Chloe and Rom proved really strong in midfield working back as well as being able to send great passes up to our dynamic forward line. In fact, Emily seemed to move from one side of the pitch to the other with ease and was complemented by Yas who was able to read Emily’s movements. Rebecca positioned herself in the danger zone, to be fair wherever Rebecca is on the pitch is ‘a danger zone’.

Unfortunately, the Ladies 4’s could not capitalise on such good play unable to create any outcomes - a goal or penalty corners. Thame, however, managed five penalty corners but all were defended brilliantly with a combination of great saves from Charlie and our defenders showing grit and determination around the D. Despite this resilience Thame managed to secure three open play goals which would dishearten lesser teams but not the Ladies 4’s. In the last 15 minutes the team continued their good work and were awarded a penalty corner – a great strike and a foul by a defender led to a second penalty corner.  This time the Ladies 4’s unleashed their ‘Ping Pong’ routine (well-practiced at training) –

1. Karen injects
2. stopped by Catherine
3. iCaz slips to Rom
4. Rom bounces the pass back to Caz who slots home!

Editor’s note: Should the Ladies 4’s reveal such detail in the report…don’t worry it’s a new website…no one can find anything!

The team were buzzing and finished on a high and are looking forward to the next league game. Player of the match was rewarded to Caz for her composure and distribution throughout the game and she now has to bring cake… match reporter request Carrot cake (M&S do a good one!)