The L5s arrived at Long Road feeling positive after last week’s win against Ely, but knowing full well that the game against Newmarket 3s was going to be a lot tougher. Despite this, within about three minutes a speedy run from Iona allowed us into their circle where Sarah scored a super goal off a rebound!

This rattled Newmarket as it clearly wasn’t how they were expecting the game to go. As Jan predicted, they began to panic as we continued to put on the pressure – resulting in some ear-splitting shouting from the opposition goalie. Our defence was rock solid, with Serin and Rosie taking confident hit outs and great tackles from Hannah P and Lauren. Nicole was always there to intercept and reliably cleared the ball, reducing the pressure on our defence. Cassie pulled out some wonderful saves at times when it looked like Newmarket were close to scoring, earning her several PoM nominations.

At half time the score was still 1-0 to us and we began the second half confident and keen to get more goals. There were some beautiful runs from Fi and Claudia in midfield and great positioning and passing between Emma and Hannah M. We continued to have lots of chances thanks to Sarah positioning herself high up the pitch, Iona’s clever passes and Nicky’s powerful shots.

One tactic that really worked was ‘setting the press’ (coined by Fi) every time Newmarket had a free hit, which limited where they could send the ball. Anna ended up on the floor so many times that she was awarded LoM – some proper astro shoes will be added to her shopping list! Of course, we must mention our player of the match, Juliette, who had endless energy and multiple times dribbled over half the length of pitch to end with a strong shot on target. One of these went in off a rebound putting us two ahead!

Unfortunately, towards the end of the second half Newmarket managed to get one in but we worked very hard in the last ten minutes to keep our lead. We finished the game on a high and feeling very proud. We even got high fives from some of the opposition’s tiny offspring!

Having now beaten one of the top two teams in the league, we are looking forward to taking on the current leaders South L4s for a second time next week…