GU12 07-Oct-06: Partington Town 1-8 Oswald Rd (HT 1-4)

A good display from the Os quickly demoralised a gritty Partington in the early part of the match. It was one-way traffic from the start and no parking please. Following on from her goal scoring antics of last week Sophie A. was on confident form and was the first to find the net after 6 mins. The Os piled on the pressure and Partington soon buckled again when Sophie took a second, the Os dominated the midfield with Jodi, Nai and Tara not putting a foot wrong.

There was little for Sukdev to do in Goal with Ruq and Tanya mopping up everything that came their way. However deep in the first half Partington took a break and their centre forward fired a speculative pop into our area and the surprise caught Sukdev and Partington pulled one back. But that was their only moment in the game of any note. The Os were well on top when Tara amazingly scored two goals in quick succession, both directly from corners! Ruq moved up from defence and probably scored the goal of the day with a shot that was still rising when it crashed into the Partington net.

The game was dominated by the midfielders and finished by the strikers, nice one girls!

Mike

Another game of two halves … but this time the two halves were the same :-) – total domination by the Oswald Rd defence, midfield and attack. Only our poor goalie didn’t get a chance to show her ability with very few saves needed and only one goal scored in the first half from a breakaway, with the defence and goalie taken by surprise by the attack. In the second half, SophieA went into goal, to give Sukdev a chance to go upfield (and to have a doze – I think she touched the ball once, maybe twice, in goal).

Anyway, back to the first half. It was nearly constant attack but with the girls not just charging forward with the ball – there were many intelligent passes and runs off the ball. SophieA got us started, as usual, after testing the goalie with a couple of shots, she struck a fine goal. After some more pressure, Katie leapt onto a loose ball in the area and swiftly punched it home. Sophie soon finished off her hat trick with two more great goals but our other attackers found their goalie hard to get past as she kept saving most of our shots (she got our player of the match for their team at the end, despite her ungrateful team mates who seemed to think the goals were her fault not their own – it would have been 1-20 if it wasn’t for her). When we were 0-4 up, we fell asleep at the back for a minute and their attacker rushed past and shot low and accurately past Sukdev. Tsk.

In the second half, our coaches shuffled the team around to give the defenders a chance up front, and Sukdev came out of goal to sharpen up her outfield skills. Ruqayyah received a beautiful pass and smacked it nicely into the top right corner of the net from outside the area. Naomi was proving very unlucky as she kept getting into good positions but the ball kept arriving on her left foot and her lack of confidence with that foot meant she kept missing the goal. Then we won a corner on the right and Tara smashed it straight into goal from a foot from the corner flag, curling it with the outside of her right foot and slightly helped by the wind. A few minutes later, we had another corner and Tara attempted the same thing – this time they were more alert but not enough as all they managed to do was deflect it straight in. Finally Katie finished off another good passing move with a shot that nearly ripped the net from the goal frame. An excellent game as we tried our best in both halves.

Kamal

Team: SophieA, Tara, Naomi, Ruqayyah, Sukdev, Jody, Tanya, Katie
Goals: 1^st half – SophieA, Katie, SophieA x2, 2^nd half – Ruqayyah, Tara x2, Katie
Opposition’s Player of the Match: Jody
Managers’ Player of the Match: Jody