Southend & Benfleet 1st XI 0 – 1 Brentwood 3rd XI
It wasn’t a good day for the ladies and I think the key was probably a lack of preparation, along with (dare I say it again, poor and bias umpiring).
We played Brentwood 2 weeks ago in a friendly where they put out a mix of players from their 2s and 3s. It was a good game, full of strong performances and lovely skill but we managed to win 4-2. So when we turned up on Saturday, of course we expect to win if they were truly fielding their full 3rd XI? But did they? It certainly didn’t feel like it!!
So we had a tough time. Granted our performance in the first half was a bit disappointing but we managed to hold off a very strong Brentwood team whilst being blown for every poor decision. The umpires had agreed to play advantage but we never saw it at all throughout the game. So it was another of them games where the flow is disrupted and the team feels penalised on every touch of the ball. Brentwood got their goal in the first 10 minutes from a short corner, that coincidentally the umpire missed the back of stick at the top of the D and let the player have a shot. She was about the only person in the vicinity that didn’t see it!!! But what do we expect!!! The game didn’t really change much for the next 60 minutes. We picked up our performance and camped out inside the Brentwood 25yard line and I think we could have been there till xmas taking shot after shot before we were going to be allowed to take a shot without getting blown out of the D!!!!
Our ladies know that better preparation is needed and that we have let it slip over the last few weeks, but we certainly didn’t deserve to loose that game against that team!
Team: Lisa Ballard, Sandy Revell, Anne Johnson, Stacey Chandler, Nicola Bryant, Lora Sharples, Adele Cole, Steph Harris, Kendal Colman, Naomi Barker, Chloe Harris |
