Having played, and comfortably won, a preseason warm up against Neston, one would assume that Saturday’s game would be comfortably ours. However, our opposition had seemingly had a shake up, leading to a blazing start to the season, heading the top of the table 2 weeks on the bounce. Understandably, then, there was some apprehension leading up to the weekend, especially given our start to the season - a start that could no be anymore different to Neston’s. We did not let this apprehension deter us.
The game began with a reasonably solid start from us, holding Neston off, but not necessarily looking dangerous. Unfortunately we spent the remainder of the half chasing the game, but still preventing Neston from scoring. A talking to at half time and some areas of focus to work on helped to create a better second half.
However, our luck ran out with holding them off, and Neston managed to sneak in a little goal. Apparently this was the catalyst required to finally put some pressure on. The final 15 minutes saw a stark change in our game - closing players down, working hard to keep our structure and actually looking dangerous. With short corners, long corners and free hits on the edge of the D, it was only a matter of time before we would equalise. And equalise we did. During one short corner, Katie Payne made a special appearance from her spell in Aus, faciliated by El Capitan, Jennie Brown, to bring the scoreline to 1-1. From this we continued to work hard and it nearly paid off again. With some great work in the D, and a cheeky tap in from Linaker, we nearly took the lead.
But...Neston’s keeper had ninja-esque reactions and managed to get her little toe to the ball and knock it just wide of the goal - unbelievably frustrating. SO close, yet just so far. Game finished 1-1. Not a win, but not a loss - a very positive step in the right direction. First point on the board - we are back with avengement* and from here on in - the only way is up.
A clean sweep in the awards this weekend, with Ellie Cliffe taking both MOM and DOD (for buying, then losing Barbie shinpads) - little bit greedy!
N.B. For ‘avengement’, read ‘avengeance’.