PHC L2's vs Southgate L2's 24.01.2015 away

After a few early morning field trips as a result of a misleading post code our 2’s met in Southgate’s changing rooms for a charged and focused team talk as we prepared ourselves for our toughest game of the season. Unfortunately Danni Petticrew’s metaphoric contribution of “working as a unit as do the Romans in “300” with their shields“, finishing neatly with “We will not let them penetrate us!” instantly earned her DOD for the 2nd week running.

It was feisty, everyone wanted in on the action and everyone fought hard to get it. We looked strong, we looked confident, we had a token supporter Ian Freeland and we played our best hockey. But this was not enough. 20 minutes in and Southgate tucked 2 goals away within 2 minutes. On reflection our Captain Lindsay Forbes was close to bursting with pride when she pointed out how we did not let this ruffle our Polly feathers; if anything we dug our claws in and fought even harder as a unit. This was rewarded by a truly splendid goal of upmost composition with a drive by Laura Patterson down the right to the baseline then a pass to Sarah Blackburn who was far post and a slap stick later that ball was nicely boxed up.

One can imagine our half time team talk with a 2-1 score; the possibility of victory against a team not yet defeated this season was not a far cry! The idea was to earn a few more shorts as we were convinced Lindsay had scared them with her near decapitating first strike. But Southgate too must have had a team talk of note as they were quicker and all the more persistent. We had a quick lesson in Spanish thrown into the mix as our Argentinian Clara Balfour expressed her panic when they had a succession of near heart stopping breaks but we quickly caught onto this and closed down the culprit keeping Southgate them at bay.

Disappointingly with around 10 minutes to go Southgate scored again, and even though we had a number of brilliant drives with and rebounds off goal posts far and near, we just didn’t get it in the net. A final score of 3-1 to Southgate. But not all was lost; our goalie Millie Lang brought happiness to teas with her batch of freshly baked cupcakes.

MOM Laura Patterson for outstanding midfield play creating gaps, driving and passing

DOD Danni Petticrew for talking dirty