Ok ladies, big game today off the back of the slip week.  Hope we’re all feeling refreshed and raring to go.  A few pointers for today…

We’ll have Loopy in goal (no surprises there).  The plan is for you to be quite involved this week, particularly in the first half.  We might need you to make some MoM worthy saves, sprinting nearly to the edge of the D to clear a wayward ball that makes it through the defensive line.  Also make sure you that smother any deflections quickly, and doubly make sure that the umpire knows that the ball is underneath you to give the corner (even if we can see it…).

Defence, the big challenge for us today will be keeping up with their fast forwards - St Neots’ only real threat seems to be a through ball from their centre mid and hoping that it finds a speedy pair of legs.  So let’s keep on our toes, nice and light feet.  Kim, I know the pitch is slippy but let’s try and keep standing up if we can.  If we end up 1-0 down at half time from us playing quite flat and not really keeping up with them, let’s make sure that we keep it tight and stop them getting any more.

Screens, let’s keep the subs nice and quick, you’ll be busy today and it’s a treat to have a sub for every line.  We should think about marking their centre mid out the game to limit the forward passing options.   Evie, I think you in particular are going to be called on for some MoM worthy hassling and distribution - and I think you might even get a glorious goal.  Kate, might be a good opportunity for you to show all of your students who are watching on the side line how to be a responsible hockey player.  If you happen to trip one of their players up, making her do a full belly flop and face plant to the floor on top of a ball, then absolutely go over and make sure she’s ok before we resume play.  I’m sure the students won’t find it funny at all.

Inners, we’re going to be working on making some great leads down the line when we’re taking 16s to give us a safe outlet pass, and generally making triangles all over the pitch.  Kerryn, we’d love to see your trademark speed and general ability to run all over the pitch, reckon it might be MoM worthy.  Alice, great to have you back in the team, we’ve missed your aggression towards goal and the strength of your hitting.  However, the umpires are pernickety, so one word of advice: when you’re taking a side line, the ball needs to be stationary.  And if you get called up for it, *really* make sure that it’s stationary on the re-take.  My nerves don’t need me thinking that you’re going to get a card on your first game back.

Finally, the forward line.  Maddy, I know we can rely on you to turn our fortunes around should we begin the second half behind.  An early goal from you would be delightful, I know you can do it, and that should give us the catalyst we need to actually play some proper hockey.  Izzy M-P, I know you love chatting, but being called over by the umpires twice might make me nervous that you’re going to get a card - we’ve just seen the team playing before us (Pelicans) have two people sent off for asking about where players were allowed to stand when subbing off, so the threshold might be quite low.  I don’t need the anxiety.  Izzy P, one of your top skills is deflections, so I’d love to see a beautiful one from you - particularly if it gives us the lead only a few minutes after we draw level.

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The above is an example of a great team talk (albeit one which would need an incredible ability to predict the future).  What actually happened in the changing rooms pre-match was an example of, I’m told, a “silly billy” (and clearly lemon worthy) team talk.  I think the highlights were me forgetting what any of our defensive positions were called (other than centre back), and basically offering no useful guidance other than “let’s score some goals”.  What can I say, after 2.5 years of this I’m running out of creative comments.  I’ll put some more effort in for next week I promise.  Other than that, the game pretty much went off as described above.  Kate, thank you for being more articulate than me and actually saying something useful at half time - frankly, we needed to be reminded that we were playing “a bit shit” and it did the job.

In other news, what followed the St Neots game was a superb turn out from the L1s at the Halloween social, great work girls.  Tildy, can we keep the Steve Irwin-inspired crocodile lido as the team mascot?