GU12 20-Jan-07: Hillgate Blues 2-0 Oswald Rd (HT 1-0)

It was a rusty Oswald Team that struggled to get to grips with a lively Hillgate team. The long Christmas break showed what not playing for 6 weeks does to a team. Oswald started very slowly and looked lost for the first ten minutes. We were soon 1-0 down. We battled against a very strong wind and made a few chances. Jazz on her debut soon got into the game and helped the defence become a little more effective. Alongside her Tanya and Ruq soon found their feet. A very wet and muddy Beck kept her spirits up in goal, and did what she had to do.

After half time we played with the wind, and a change of wind gave us a change of fortune, on the very heavy pitch. We looked better and made several chances, one on one, and four against two, but it wasn’t our day. Zoe kept battling on the wing, and Sophie started to link up well with Katie and Taz. But the goal which would have lifted us just didn’t come, and possibly demoralized us a little. It was Hillgate who killed the game when their player of the day scored a solo effort which Becks could do little about. Sophi A. took all the honours, player of the day for us and Hillgate.

Mike

An excellent match considering the long lay off with only a few training sessions to keep reflexes in tune. The only symptoms of the month without any games were a few occasions when the defence was a little disorganised – other than that, the team played well all round with lots of our shots just missing goal, or being blocked or saved by their defence and keeper. There was a very strong wind blowing (not quite gale force) and in the first half we were playing into the wind.

This was Jazz’s first game with us, and she played well – starting off a little hesitantly but gaining confidence and playing better and better throughout the game. At the beginning of the game our defence had its worst patch when Hillgate attacked and attacked and we couldn’t clear the ball except to one of their players. In the fifth minute, another semi-clearance went to one of their good players who crossed it to an unmarked player in front of goal and Rebecca had no chance with the shot. Aargh!

From this point, we pulled ourselves together and, despite the wind, we strung together some good passes and mounted a few excellent attacks. SofiA just missed a couple of times and also produced some great crosses but our forwards couldn’t quite get a touch into goal, Ruq who normally anticipates SofiA’s crosses was busy in defence. Our defence was looking better, especially when SofiP was on as she’s a solid right back who doesn’t wander out of position unless there’s a good reason, so Katie and Ruq were able to help midfield and attack when we had the ball. Tanya was a little rusty (missed the training sessions) but was soon just as energetic as before. Rebecca had a great game throughout (pre-muddying her was a good idea) and produced the saves when needed – one an excellent fingertip save to push the ball past the post for a corner.

The second half was mostly ours with the wind behind us, but we still kept missing the goal as Barhill’s obdurate defence held firm. Mike tried swapping players round and more players moved up to help attack leaving Zoe in an unaccustomed defensive role where she played extremely well but still the goal didn’t come despite Tara’s and SofiA’s efforts. Finally one of Barhill’s attacks pierced our stretched defence with their best player stretching to hit the ball in off the post.

Overall we played really well and with a little bit less rust we’d have done a lot better.

Kamal

Team: SophieA, Jazz, Tara, Ruqayyah, Zoë, Tanya, SophieP, Katie, Rebecca
Goals (& Assists): nowt
Opposition’s Player of the Match: SophieA
Managers’ Player of the Match: SophieA (Jazz close 2^nd)