After last week’s tie
with Ely being postponed due to a frozen pitch, Newmarket were ready
and willing at Saturday’s game, their first league meeting since
November. With Walden chasing Town for the table-top position, the
home side knew they couldn’t afford to relax. Newmarket took control
from the whistle, taking the game straight into Walden’s half and
keeping it there allowing Lydia Fyson to open the scoring at 2
minutes and adding another at 9 minutes. Credit goes to Walden’s
defence who worked well under pressure; the score could have been
much higher with great shots by wings Tracy Cockerill and Helen
Readmane.
Walden had obviously
been talking tactics in the half time break and launched a storming
attack. Newmarket rushed to the defence and repelled repeated
efforts at goal. Walden were unable to score from their efforts
whilst Newmarket added another 2 goals from forays into Walden’s
half. An embarrassing display by Town’s right back could have been
an own goal, luckily the shot went straight to the feet of ‘keeper
Sue Bullimore who dealt quickly with the surprise assault.
Play continued but
Walden refused to be moved from Town’s ‘25’ for long. Persistence
paid off and a cracking shot from Walden’s captain rocketed to the
back of the goal at 49 minutes. As the game re-started Walden looked
to be keeping on the pressure but Town’s Clare McDonnell thought
otherwise and extracted the ball from a crowd of players making use
of the space elsewhere to take the ball all the way to Walden’s D,
she was paralleled by Tracy Cockerill on the left wing who came in
so McDonnell could pass to her, around the lone defender;
Cockerill’s third.
The ball was more evenly
distributed in the second half and the home defence missed skipper
Sam Smith, away in Florida. They were
caught napping on a couple of occasions when Walden broke through
the midfield and made for goal, however the breaks were rarely
supported and the Rolph mother and daughter team worked well
together to clear any marauding balls. Fyson and McDonnell
continued to trouble the visitor’s defence and added another 3 goals
before the final whistle.
Newmarket should aim to
maintain the quality of passing and communication shown on Saturday
for their next fixture, away at St Ives.
