Newmarket Ladies 3’s v Haverhill – 4 -0 win to Haverhill
With an impressive turn out of 15 players, a tough game faced the Newmarket ladies 3’s this Saturday who played against Haverhill. Although we arrived with sceptical minds, we started the game as a means to go on. With enthusiasm!
The first half of the game showed a 1-0 advantage to Haverhill. Without the strong defence we placed, it would of been a game with much different results!
With Jane and Janie taking half a match on the wing, Rachel in the centre with a war of her own to fight with their forward!! Jess pushing forward to intercept attempts into the ‘D’ and Phoebe constantly challenging the players along the left wing and applying pressure that caused panic each time!
Georgia was in goal, and despite the strong defence, a few breaks through saw 4 goals in. Spending half of the game on the floor planking for short corners after a record number were conceded, a lot of saves were made against skilled shots, by Georgia and the defensive team, impressing the opposition.
The midfield had their work cut out, Bronnie, Lydia, Bea and Vicky ploughing up and down the pitch with impressive stamina. Despite the result we kept a strong front and kept the standards and skills up throughout the game that we knew we had and could use against Haverhill to challenge their high level players.
Man of the match was awarded to Hannah Fox, for her strong running back to defence to help and back up the pitch with skills to charge into the opposition’s defence in attempt of a goal. Teddy went to Vicky for forgetting all of our training balls!
Overall, despite the 4-0 score line, all the ladies 3’s held their own and fought a strong game against a strong team. Onwards and upwards for the ladies 3’s who see themselves facing Ely 3’s at the weekend.
Norwich City 2’s v Newmarket Ladies 1’s: 1 – 0 to Newmarket
Finally Newmarket Ladies 1’s got off the mark against Norwich City 2’s and bagged 3 points to lift them out of the relegation zone.
Expecting a close game Town were missing a consistent side again for the match but knew they needed to utilize their strength on the ball and width play. City like Newmarket have had some high scoring defeats and also struggled to find the backboards.
The Norwich pitch – a recent addition to the site, was incredibly bouncy and carpet like and thankfully for Newmarket Norwich also found it tricky to handle. Newmarket having the opening push back worked hard at keeping possession. Exemplary ball control from April Atkinson, Faye Andreou and Claire McDonnell meant Town were holding their shape but struggling to find the final through balls.
Persistence paid off for Newmarket and they were winning the possession battle and driving towards goal – Angel Fayers and Loren Davenport combining well and finding striker Calli Cannon.
Jade Atkinson had little to do in goal and on occasions the ball came close she calmly kicked it to a supporting defender keeping up the flow of the game.
Newmarket were edging closer to scoring and after a solid move along the right flank April Atkinson and Davenport found McDonnell who unleashed a killer chip as soon as she hit the D leaving the keeper stranded giving Town their first goal of the season.
This galvanized Newmarket and they got stronger and stronger. Goal chances were relentless and Town were marking Norwich free hits superbly leaving them high and dry for passing options. Zoe Bailey and Gail Parkins were able to push up field to keep the pressure on and in fact Parkins came incredibly close to scoring after a goal mouth scramble but apparently the ball was not deemed to have crossed the line.
Player of the match Tania Fisher was always placed where she could intercept passes and supported her front runner brilliantly. Towards the end of the second half Newmarket surprisingly again looked the fitter team showing that this element of their training has paid off.
Newmarket look to use the victory as a confidence boost going into the home match against 4th place Panthers next weekend, 2pm start.
Newmarket Ladies 2’s V Ely 2’s
Newmarket Ladies 2’s played in a local derby at home against Ely 2’s, Knowing they had to keep the pressure on to push for the top of the table position they started as they meant to go on by attacking Ely from the off by not letting them out of their own half.
Great team work with some brilliant passing between Anna Sambrook, Tracy Cockerill and Stef Howard kept Newmarket moving forward. Despite the mounting pressure, Ely played well to keep the score at 0-0 at half time despite Newmarket having most of the play. Newmarket waited patiently for the first goal because the Ely keeper had other ideas and was saving everything. However Cassie Edgar-Ayms’ determination changed this when a strong sweeping shot found the back of the net.
Becca Bunning pushed everyone up from defense which increased the pressure on Ely who then gave away a short corner. This was injected to Lydia Evans who skillfully passed to Mel Podd who slipped the ball to Tracy Cockerill – she found herself in a great position to tap the ball in the goal. The third goal from a well worked short corner came from an amazing Cassie Edgar-Ayms strike that found the corner of goal perfectly. Cassie was awarded player of the match.