Ladies 2s -vs- Lansdown
24 January 2009
3 - 0
Cheltenham had a slow start due to a new formation, which enabled lansdown to dominate in the first ten minutes. Cheltenham were awarded a short corner which Sophie Jowett slipped to Karen Keating to strike home. Chelt then started to control the game and produced some good set pieces. Karen Keating scored from the right wing to make it 2-0 at half time.
In the second half both teams worked hard to create chances. Corrie Farrel make some positive saves and the defense worked well together. Cheltenham had many changes but were unable to capitalise from them. The Ladies 3rd goal came from fluent hockey down the left side which found Rachel Chicken slapping the ball into goal.
Goal Scorers: Karen Keating (2), Rachel Chicken
Player of the Match: Hannah Tredgett
Ladies 3s -vs- Ross on Wye
24 January 2009
3 - 1
The third XI ladies were back to form this week with an excellent 3-1 win against Ross-on-Wye. Not one person could be singled out as playing the best as everyone played so well and had their part in our win, hence the decision by captain Becs to award everyone on the team "man of the match".
We had a goal each from our forwards who, with some fantastic running, picked up some great passes from defence through to midfield to put the ball in the back of the goal. Ross nearly scored two but their first was disallowed as it did not come off their player in the D - a great call from our defence to the umpires getting the goal overturned. Moanie pointed out at half time that we were quiet and not congratulating ourselves enough after scoring a goal. Valuable words of wisdom as more cheering from our side lifted our game play even higher to put two more goals away.
It took about 10minutes at the beginning of each half to get into our stride, but some cool and collected words from Sue (one more time playing an excellent game in goal for us) of simply, "play our game", and we did. We did well to distribute the ball about the pitch, switching left to right. Intercepted balls were ones where we were trying to make the correct play but speed wasn't on our side. This demonstrates we are listening at training, building on our play every week and were just unfortuante when Ross got their first.
The defence certainly put into practice tactics learnt at training, managing to cut off the play from Ross on several occasions. Communication on the pitch was key to maintaining our formation, where marking was much more controlled - with all players working together to close off the oppositions passes from free hits and in play all along the pitch.
Short corners worked better this week and were were unlucky not to score from them. A little more practice at training and we'll get it in every time!
Things to focus on at training: short corners, as mentioned, and generally just refining our skills. We all did so well, it was a pleasure to play and watch and our hard work paid off. Once again training together is key to success and with the great training sessions we've had, we've got a good background to go all the way this season! Well done ladies!!
Goal Scorers: Cat Drum, Lousia Dowsett, Jo Taylor
Player of the Match: Whole Team
