Superb defence with reduced team in 5-0 loss to Witney 3s

We travelled to Witney yesterday with only 9 players for the return match against Witney 3s, current division leaders.

The girls played out of their skins, and even managed to claim a couple of short corners during the match despite the lack of a forward line in the team. But the match was really a display of persistent, tireless defense inspired by an awesome performance by Daisy with a flawless demonstration of break dancing, on more than one occasion making half a dozen saves from the floor after a logging dive. She managed to make herself so large in the goalmouth that Witney strikes repeatedly shot just wide of the goal as they tried to get round her. We felt it was a great achievement to limit Witney to just 4 goals in the first half, but with Daisy just getting better and better as the match went on, we held Witney off completely for the first 30 minutes of the second half before an unplayable strike streaked through from the top of the 'D' for Witney's only second half goal five minutes from the end of the match. Another measure of the success of the 4s defence was that we only conceded one penalty corner goal despite at least a dozen PCs being awarded against us.

Daisy was acclaimed Player of the Match by the whole team as soon as we left the pitch. Other mentions must go to Zoe for coping so well on her debut under such challenging conditions, to Zoe's mum Louise for the courage of taking centre back and finding her confidence so well during the match that she was claiming the role of runner on short corners by the end, to Ness who came despite feeling thoroughly unwell and who held on brilliantly - I hope you don't feel too awful today! - and to Laura for anchoring the whole team in the centre of the field and turning defence into attack over and over again throughout the match. Tash, Liv, Sarah and Jenny completed a team in which everyone's contribution was outstanding.

I also want to record my thanks to Helen for willingly taking only 10 players to the 3s match against Wycombe so that the 4s could mount a team. Her generosity meant that the 3s drew their match instead of winning, but the 4s managed to avoid another default.