A loss to Leeds

After a brilliant game in York the week before, we had a fantastic 15 players lined up for our game against Leeds at home. We don’t have a great track record against Leeds, but with a strong team and lots of subs, we went into the game feeling confident.

The day didn’t start well when Vicky contacted Newby and Helen and told us she was “ill” after a few messages it transpired that “ill” meant “severely hungover” so after lots of abuse Vicky didn’t bail on the match.

The game started well, we were passing and moving, we looked strong and confident on the pitch. We were having to defend quite heavily as Leeds were coming at us with attack after attack and closing down a lot of our breaks.

When we made space, we had some really good attacks on the Leeds end and we were unlucky a couple of times with some umpiring decisions, this definitely went both ways for us though.

We were battling well and looking pretty even on the field, we marked the space and were managing to keep the ball away from some of the more able players.

Then something happened. Two separate incidents on the pitch caused two of our players to leave the field. This meant we had some quick subs brought that were out of position. This pushed the rest of the team out of position and caused some serious confusion on the pitch. It was during this confusion that Leeds scored. 1-0 to Leeds.

We are, generally, a very friendly club and we pride ourselves on being so. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment on the pitch things get said that shouldn’t be said. We as a team have to try not to disregard the feelings of the people who are on our team, people who dedicate their time to our club week after week, season after season. We need to provide a supportive, dedicated and friendly playing environment otherwise we might as well not bother. We should expect a level of professionalism from everyone on the pitch. If we had all kept our heads in this situation, we might not have lost the game and this makes me sad.

Right, talk over, back to the match. We went into halftime 1-0 down, but we weren’t defeated. We dusted ourselves off and got back on the pitch.

The second half was very similar to the first, Leeds were strong but we were keeping them at bay and making our own attacks too. Tina, Vicky and Fretters were doing some great attacking work on the right hand side channeling some really dangerous balls.

Defence were closing down attack after attack from Leeds supported by midfield who were then driving the ball up the field to the attackers.

With 5 minutes to go we had decided that we needed to push the attack, possibly at the risk of conceding again. Jodi went on the attack and did the most spectacular dive to shoot on goal. Unfortunately the ball didn’t go in, which is unfair because this move saw Jodi in A&E with a damaged shoulder. Jodi we hope you get well soon!

The game ended 1-0 to Leeds and MOM went to Linda for her awesome defending.

Next Week: Bradford away.