If you imagine a South derby you imagine prime time midday slot, sunshine, and roaring crowds cheering on the underdog. What we got was the dark, cold, rainy late slot. Still, there were some hardcore fans who made it out (thanks to everyone!), with a good mix of supporters for both sides.

The 2s (in bright sunshine yellow with matching face paint provided by Suzi) were keen to continue as they had last week, with an amazing warm-up courtesy of Rebecca off the pitch and fantastic team play on the pitch. Derbys are always tough and this one was no exception. The 3s put a couple of their forwards high up front which kept our defenders occupied. This meant we had to adapt our usual game play and run our switches through our mids Hayley and Rebecca instead of our defense. They did so fantastically and passed the balls to our wings Rachel and Rhian who carried the balls up high and smacked them into the D. Our forwards were trying hard to make it past the awesome defenders but were struggling to get the ball into the back of the net. Lydia did some awesome saves but finally Jess rewarded our team work with a smashing goal. The ball came from one of our wing backs who smacked it to the top of the D from where it was passed to the P spot. Jess ran for it and slapped it past Lydia! 1:0 at half time and we had a great team chat with Paul and Oscar.

The second half started much like the first: cold, rainy, but with the 2s showing an eagerness to play as a unit. One of the first attacks ended with the ball reaching Cait at the top of the D who managed a fantastic reverse hit on goal that went into the bottom left corner! The game continued with everyone fighting hard. Tabs was her usual self, twirling through the opposition and carrying the ball up front. Tiff and Emily, who had both done us a great favour by helping us out when playing against their own team were putting intense pressure on the defenders and snatching the ball off them multiple times.

The 3s were keeping up a great fight and kept our defense and mids gasping for air when they broke through and brought the ball to our D a few times. They could have been successful if it wasn‘t for Nic who had such an amazing game that no one managed to get through her! And those that managed to get past her got stopped at our second wall aka Niamh. Boo was doing a fab job at keeping the defenders marking and deflected the few balls that got close. After a bit of a slow phase the 2s picked up their speed and pressure and brought the ball up high once again. We were rewarded with Jess‘ second goal from a one-on-one with a defender on the baseline where she managed to sneak the ball through from quite a tight angle.

With ten minutes to go we got a short corner. It may not have gone as planned but it ended up with Nic hitting the goal so let‘s pretend that was our routine! Always fun when our centre back gets a goal so everyone was absolutely thrilled for her.

Jenny decided to play until she heard the whistle only to find she had bad hearing and had to have 5 people yell at her to stop playing (first LoM offence); she also got confused when playing out of her usual position as she naturally stayed centre back realising centre mid was missing “what am I doing here?“ (second LoM offence). She would like to mention Nic smashing the ball into the D from as far as the half way line which apparently still wasn‘t enough time for Jess on the post to get her foot out of the way. We‘ll blame the rain and teary eye for that one but at least she didn’t sustain lasting damage. I hope the same can be said for Louisa who got hit by Rebecca through her shin pad (quite an impressive hit some may say).

Overall, a derby game that was much better than the weather and everyone had fun. We ended with hugs and a purple and yellow group photo. After a shaky start to the season, the 2s are hitting their stride and remembering why we nearly got promoted last season. Let’s keep this up girls!

There were loads of PoM votes for different players, with Rhian, Jess, Rebecca, and Rachel each getting a vote but the winners were Tiff for her incredible hustling and pressure up front, Nic for her solid tackling and goal, and Jenny for brilliant running and commitment in the centre. LoM went to Jenny for said issues but she has decided she takes these LoM votes as compliments to her baking skills.