It was a chilly day for the home derby at Long Road – the L2s meeting the L3s. War paint was required; it turns out that purple stripes can make you look either suitably fearsome (Lauren) or like a rather thick-whiskered kitten (Emma-Rose).

The L2s started the match uncharacteristically switched on, scoring almost immediately. This set the tone for an impressive first half with nine goals, including a fabulous lifted deflection from Issy off a belter of a long pass in from Emma-Rose; an angled, short-range lifted ball that found the gap between defenders and keeper from Kendra; a super-composed collect and finish from Lauren off the right post; and a business-like finish from Hazel, who placed herself perfectly to finish Kendra’s slip pass at the end of a long solo dribble from half way.

Hazel also scored two other great goals, earning herself the MoM title in the process but I can’t tell you anything about them as she was on the opposite corner of the pitch to me and I didn’t get to see the details. By the end of the first half the L2s were nine goals up and feeling comfortable.

We aren’t sure what was said at the L3s' half time talk but it worked. The L2s had to work a lot harder for three more goals against their reorganised defence, and our defence got considerably warmer as the L3s put more pressure on in attack. However, by the end of the game Issy, Kendra and Hazel had all sunk three goals, Lauren two and Katie one. The right result for the club both because of the final result – there’d be something odd going on if we’d not won well – but also because of the second half play that showed the strength of this year’s L3 team.

There were lots of nominees for MoM, reflecting an excellent team performance all round. The only disappointment was that Lucy M didn’t score on her last trip out for the club before moving back to the frozen north – to be fair, she was only briefed it was in her gameplan two minutes before the end and wasn’t positioned further up than centre back, but still… Louisa picked up a well-deserved Lemon for getting stroppy at the umpires when they tried to get her to do one of these new-fangled long-corners-from-the-23 thingies correctly but otherwise we hope both teams enjoyed a good natured, if chilly, match.