Run Away Win for Buckingham 4s

On a blisteringly cold afternoon, Buckingham 4s kept themselves warm with a second goal fest in a week. It only took a few minutes for the girls to settle into their stride and start taking the play right into the Thame 23. Without any specialist screens on the team we worked as a deep, fast midfield with all five midfielders working efficiently together to out-skill and out-run the Thame players to deliver the ball into the Thame D over and over again. In the first half five goals flowed from four different scorers - times and who scored when a blur when seen from the defence! The few Thame breaks were efficiently cleared up with Tilly Flynn emphatically holding the centre back, and Thame never got anywhere near Daisy Daymond in goal. Buckingham's only problems were resisting the tendency to let play collapse into a quarter of the pitch, and stopping Daisy freezing to the spot with inactivity!

In the second half the team made a point of working across the whole width of the field, and some wonderful interlinking play resulted. Six more goals came, with six different scorers across the game, one each for Isabella Cowperthwaite and Emily Krelle, two each for Charlotte English, Lauren Rawlings and Lucinda Cotterill and a hat trick for Charlotte Yates. There were even moments when Tilly and Captain Lizz Hone got from their positions in defence right up to the Thame D, with centre Mid Charlotte Y dropping right back to cover the rear in a lovely example of thoughtful play. And although she didn't get on the score sheet, Katie McKenna made an exceptionally good contribution to the match with energetic, committed and incisive play from screen, a position she has never been asked to play but which she mastered.

A bit of variety was injected into the match in the second half by a couple of rapid Thame breaks which finally reached the Buckingham D. Daisy didn't quite manage to defrost in time to smother the first strike from the edge of the D, and the second resulted in a short corner when Daisy's enthusiastic kick clearance went skywards. The resulting second short corner was rocketed into the Buckingham goal. By then we were already so emphatically in the lead, the Thame goals just served to get the girls to kick down and score again.

Joint players of the match were Lauren and Lucy with Charlotte Y and Issy (who had a storming match, growing increasingly fluent and confident as it went on) just behind in the team's votes. It really was a hugely enjoyable team effort and a pleasure to watch from the rear.