Date: 19/11/2006
Game: Panthers Reserves vs. BAWFC Reserves
Author: Suzie Gibson
Players of the match: Jacinta & Simone

So the Reserve team were playing The Panthers Reserve away last Sunday 19th November. And get this we had an amazing 12 players and me (Suzie) who thought she might actually make it on to the pitch for the second time this season - but it wasn’t to be - you lot are gonna be so much fitter than me by the time I get back to it!

So we were confident from the off (Oh apart from me who had to run the line - aaargh). We warmed up and chatted and were quite relaxed before we started. Lee gave her pep talk and we were off. The aim of the match was to either get a goal in our own net or to finish in single goals against us - and guess what we did the later (oh and Simone kind of half did the first one!!! Sorry Sim).

So the game began - and we looked good - then disaster struck with a goal after only about 3 minutes. Not even sure what went wrong....... I was too busy watching the line - literally!! The really encouraging thing was we had quite a few chances throughout especially in this first half - Jane (even though injured), Marie(great to have some experience up front) and at times Jacinta and Lee (both battling hard for everything and getting their heads in at every opportunity) were linking up and moving forward - see we can build up an attack!!! The oppo did score another 5 goals - but no amazing ones in my eyes - Pat even said that the score did not reflect the performance we put in against them. They did have some amazing corners which I was closely supervising from my lines man position (get me) but they failed to get into the net - Ha Ha! We also managed to catch (although not sure it was a conscious effort) them off side in the first half - thanks to my call!! No honest it was off side Julia.

I must say that the half time score was a result, for me, in terms of our past performances and we finished it 6-0, I was feeling really confident at this point that we could come in under the 10!

There were a few changes at half time and Jane came off for a well deserved rest and Carolyn came on for her debut for BA - welcome Carolyn. Then we switched Jennie and Aoife around, to get a bit more experience in the back 4. Jo moved to mid-field and Jacinta dropped back - Jo was going for everything in the middle and looked confident - whilst Jacina kept it solid at the back with the help of Sim and the 2 corner backs (Bin and Ifa) Bin I am so surprised your boots did not fly off at some point! We did find ourselves in quite a few tough positions in the right corner, but we still managed to clear up a lot of the pushes forward from those wretched Panthers. Throw-ons were excellent and only a couple of foul throws made - lets keep these to an absolute minimum and practice at training. Oh and I forgot to mention the one walk-off that we had - Aoife - make sure if you are going to nip off for a drink that you do it out of the sight of the ref - yes he did act completely over the top - He had a good old chuckle to himself over what he probably thought were his funny comments to Aoife - he was talking for ages.....

There was one free kick - and yes you guessed it - against us!!! Jenny’s instant reaction which am sure would have also have been mine if a ball was whacked into my face was to protect it - but they missed miserably and we all cheered for Julia who I believe did move in the right direction and of course would have saved it if she had needed to.

So the final score was 9-0, and Jenny made an absolutely blinding attempt at saving the very last goal, but just could not get there in time. We certainly battled to keep the score under 10 - well done girls and lets have an even better performance next week.