Team: Esme, Norah, Ellie, Olivia, Molly, Bella, Millie, Sophie
Sponsor: Lightning Tools
It was a home game for the girls this morning after a long run of away matches. You could tell the girls felt a lot more comfortable on home turf as they were all a lot happier and confident.
We kicked this game off with a minute silence in memory of Prince Phillip.
1st
Right from the off Rugby were switched on and ready by dominating the play. This lead to early success after a good strong shot helped in by the post, this gave the Rugby girls a big smile on their faces and more confidence to fight for the ball. With most of the play being in the Rugby’s possession defender Norah and keeper Olivia didn’t have much to do but on the odd chance Albert Village broke through Norah was on hand to put in a strong tackle and clear the ball with Olivia behind ready to scoop anything up that came her way.
With constant work from midfielders Millie and Esme we were just constantly running at the AV defence. With some great passes from midfield to a well-positioned Sophie up front this lead to more opportunities but unfortunately we couldn’t be successful. With it being a warm day, it wasn’t long before we made our first substitution. With Ellie now in midfield some fresh legs brought even more energy to the pitch, Ellie was putting in strong tackles and making great clearances away from goal. Soon after another sub was made with brought Bella onto the pitch, again with some fresh legs the Rugby girls continued to dominate play with some brilliant passes and marking to deny the Albert girls any chance on goal.
With another change being made we saw Molly swap for Norah in defence for some more strong tackles. Albert Village had woken up by this point and were running at us quite a lot putting Molly and Olivia under pressure. Olivia was very brave in goal especially as this was only her second time in goal, she made some fantastic saves and wasn’t afraid to run out to the AV strikers, she made some brilliant goal kicks to put Rugby back in the oppositions half. After what felt likes ages for the girls half time had come around.
2nd
With some words of encouragement and some changes to the team Rugby were fired up once more to go out and smash it. The girls were significantly more tired than when we first kicked off, but this wasn’t going to slow them down.
Albert Village picked up on the fact that we were a bit more tired and took the chance to run at our goal but changed keeper Norah was quick onto it and the ball was safe in her hands. It was evident that 5 minutes into the seconds half Rugby had used all their energy and AV become successful to make the game equal.
We made constant changes to allow the worn-out girls to have a rest, this found Ellie in defence along with Sophie in midfield and Olivia at the opposite end of the pitch playing up front. For the majority of the second half saw Rugby defending their goal as much as they could leading Norah to make some brilliant diving saves. Unfortunately, AV had a striker with a very powerful shot which put Rugby on the back foot even more.
The score line didn’t deter Rugby and we kept fighting, Esme in midfield didn’t stop battling for the ball which helped Rugby move the ball up the pitch. Bella came back on and was ready to stop any AV player in her tracks which she did really well. Norah made some long goal kicks down to Olivia at the other end of the pitch so we could have more chances on goal.
Millie played really well running lengths of the pitch to support the defence and striker, she linked up well with the strikers playing brilliant through balls to them and creating space for Sophie in midfield to run up. Towards the end of the second half found Molly back in defence ready to plant some powerful tackles. Its safe to say when the final whistle blew the girls were ready to drop to the fall after a strong 40 minutes of football.
Parents Player: Olivia for a great first half in goal and a impressive performance up front.
Managers player: Ellie for making some superb tackles and not giving up until the very end.
In training and matches Rugby have really been focusing on positioning especially from our goal kick or a throw in. Both Dan and I are very pleased with how well the girls have picked up the routine of going to the “lines” for a goal kick which helps us to keep the ball out of the ‘danger zone’ being the middle of the pitch. It is becoming very clear each week that the girls are listening and taking on board everything they’re being taught as each game they play gets better and better.
Thank you to Alice for refereeing.
