Today the L6s achieved their first draw of the summer league, thanks to a great all-round team performance, a slightly more defensive formation, and help from some 2/3/4 players.

Two more junior players made their senior debut in this match. Ella Risby had a fantastic game up front, putting plenty of pressure on Nomads’ goal thoughout, and was unlucky not to score. Carlotta Harris played brilliantly in defence (not her preferred position, so thank you for helping out!) and did a great job of hassling and tackling players who were attacking down the wing.

We have to say a big thank you to Tess for stepping in as goalie (for the second time ever). She had another excellent performance and made some great saves, notably a short period of sustained attacks in the second half in which we couldn’t quite clear the ball from our D and Nomads kept retrieving it for repeated shots, but no goal.

Playing with four at the back definitely seemed to improve our man marking. Nomads took an early lead with an impressive shot high into the net. After the restart, South settled into their positions and began pushing back for an equaliser. Amy and Evie both had another excellent game as wide midfielders, driving the ball confidently up the line. There was great play from Rebecca F and Alice in central mid, intercepting and distributing passes.

Persistence paid off and Emily tapped in an equaliser. Lou managed to completely miss this event (sorry Em!) and was pleasantly surprised at half time to realise we were not a goal behind but drawing!

There was end to end action throughout the second half. Nomads pulled ahead again, but a great finish from Nicky bought us back level to the final score of 2-2, as Nicky scored off the rebound after Emily’s shot was saved.

A draw against Nomads 1s is an excellent result for the 6s. There’s no doubt that the inclusion of a few higher team players was enormously helpful (thank you Anna, Jenny, Rebecca, Alice and Ginny for stepping in to make sure we had a full squad, and being awesome on the pitch) but this was a great team performance and everyone should be really pleased with how they played.