A disappointing result

This week we were playing Pickering at home. We knew this was going to be a hard game as Pickering sat 2nd in the league, between Leeds and Cleckheaton, both of whom we’d lost to in recent weeks.

Still, the 12 of us that gathered at the pitch didn’t let this get to us and went out to take the game to Pickering.

The first few minutes of the game we promising, we had some strong attacks on Pickering. Soon though, Pickering started to pick up on some gaps in our marking. They were making strong runs down the centre and it felt like they always had a player to slip the ball to. Soon they managed to take it round our defence and we found ourselves 1-0 down.

Despite some great defending and keeping, we struggled to keep the attacks at bay, with Pickering seeming to get round us with far too much ease. Soon we found ourselves 2-0 down. We were playing well, our attacks were getting through and we weren’t without chances of our own, however this was putting lots of pressure on the midfield to support both attacks and defending, when Pickering broke it was fast.

At half time we had to pull ourselves together and go out in to the second half fighting.

We started well in the second half, making some strong attacks and getting though the Pickering defence. Soon, a great break from Gail took her right through the Pickering defence and a great shot from the edge of the D landing straight in the Pickering GOAL 2-1, we were making a comeback!

Having changed some of the midfield positioning (great idea that Jodi!) we had closed some of the marking gaps. This meant that we were keeping Pickering at bay more and stopping the breaks.

Another great run from Gail saw off the Pickering defence and a perfectly timed pass to Jodi allowed her a one on one with the keeper, Jodi scored our second GOAL making it 2-2. We were definitely dominating at this point and were confident that we could keep going.

Pickering however had other ideas and started to push harder in to the Batley defence. A slip through the defence saw Pickering have another shot on goal and it was 3-2 to Pickering.

One memorable attack from Pickering was stopped when the ball was hit at Danni full pace, Danni couldn’t quite get her stick in the way and the ball hit her clean in the shins. She got a green card for this. Some might say that Daz was a bit quick with the card here, it didn’t look deliberate to me. Daz said it was though, so now Danni owes us all a round of drinks. Rules are rules.

We both gained and conceded short corners, and found ourselves 2 defenders down again at one point when both Jenni and Fretters got sent to the half way line. Helen, Emily and Danni put up a great defence though and managed to keep the ball out. We also benefitted from this rule when one of the Pickering defenders got sent to halfway, but we weren’t able to take advantage of it either.

Pickerings fourth goal came from a short corner and a deflection off Fretters legs. (Daz, I think it might have been deliberate…. Just saying)

The final score was 4-2 to Pickering and we went back to the pub to lick our wounds. Fretters got MOM for the second week in a row. That girl never gets tired!

Next week, we have a week off.

#batley #batleyladieshc #matchreport #hockey