Our second friendly of the season kicked off after a quick warm up and introductions before the game. We played well in the first half and the sides were evenly matched with the help of our star goalie, Lou, who made some excellent saves. The team fought hard against Royston’s strong hitters and their attempts on goal, defending well and managing to hold them off with only one goal getting past us in the first half.

After a sugar hit at half time, we went back on with encouraging words from Laurie. Royston’s strength began to show and they managed to gain more possession from us during the second half. After a few stick tackles on both sides, the umpire gave a stern warning to say he’d hand out green cards for anymore of the same. He stuck to his word and not long after his warning the first card was handed out. Unfortunately it went to South’s Olivia, but she was quickly back on and not long after it was Royston’s turn to take a sin bin.

Royston scored a further six goals in quick succession over the second half. However, we did have some great play with lovely runs by Izzy, Rebecca and Catriona up the pitch.

MoM was awarded to Rebecca for her top attacking skills and Lou for her brilliant goalkeeping and multitude of saves; votes also came in for Izzy for her great movement and lovely runs. LoM was awarded to Olivia for the green card but has swiftly been passed to Polly for forgetting her stick; once when she was on the pitch and a second time as the team were heading home.

Big thanks also to Tom for his excellent job with Laurie’s colour-coded subbing system and top sideline support.