The sun shone on Cambridge South as the Ladies 1s came into Long Road reminiscing on the training session before; a few giggles here and a laugh there they began their hockey rituals of shin padding and talking through the lineup.

Eager to start, the ladies began their pitch warm up with a gleam in their eyes and a fight in their belly, hungry for a win against Norwich Dragons.

A whistle blew and the match began. Our 1s started with speed, pressuring the ball after the Norwich Dragons pushback. They managed to win the ball and some brilliant attacking ensued. Finally a short corner came, a straight strike followed by rebound chasing, Izzy had an exceptional opportunity and flicked it over the goalie towards goal which was unfortunately stopped en route to the target by Maddy’s nose. Maddy made her way to the sideline disheartened by the missed opportunity and bleeding from her nostrils as a penance. Luckily Oscar was on the sideline to kindly remind Maddy of her shameful goal keeping.

In an unfortunate turn of events Norwich Dragons took the opportunity of a shaken team to make a counter attack and scored. The game continued with some more cracking attacking from our 1s. Maddy returned to the pitch eager to compensate for her mistake, winning a short corner from a foot in the D. A fast injection from Jess followed by Katie's sweep to post led to a brilliant deflection into goal by Jess.

The half time whistle blew with a score 1-1.

As time went by the ladies continued to dominate the attack, but Norwich dragons weren’t going down without a fight. Cambridge South had some lovely runs allowing through balls from the defence into dangerous positions. In the last 15 though still fighting hard Norwich scored 2 goals. In a final effort for another goal the Cambridge team attacked hard winning a short corner. A straight strike unfortunately stopped by a foot on the line… a penalty flick was given. Izzy was chosen to take the chance and threw the ball straight into the top right corner, ending the game 2-3 to Norwich.

A unfortunately loss for the Cambridge South team, but without sounding too toxically positive some beautiful play from our side.