After a stellar performance from the first team after Wednesday’s training match against Roundwood’s Regional team, the A’s were ready and confident to go out for the win against Fairlands. With Harriet Field still a nincompoop and out with an ankle injury and Katie Mayo still recovering from tonsillitis we were two strong members down. With Laura Cross almost recovered from the flu and Millie Oughton on a ban from cooking we still had an 8 strong squad. With plenty of options trialled on Wednesday, Coach Anna started the game from GK to GS: Lauren Brown, Lily Rogers, Laura Cross, Emily Nicholls, Becky Crisfield, Anna Gray and Emily Barber.
A shaky start and a few unforced errors within the first few minutes gave Fairlands a few goal lead. A change in pace and some feet finding allowed Hillcrest to close in on the gap but still not enough to take the quarter win (11-12).
Fairlands continued to put out a good performance in the second quarter and caused a lot of confusion in our attack making us work hard for a safe ball in or in quite a few instances force us to make the error that they ultimately turnover and converted. There was some fantastic play but it was followed by some very poor decision making and many missed opportunities to capitalise on turnovers. Half time score (18-23) saw Millie Oughton on at GK and a switch a round for Emily Barber and Anna Gray.
Unfortunately these decisions didn't help with our performance and we saw the gap increase to 11 goals going into the last quarter (26-37). With a final change of Lauren Brown on to GD, Lily Rogers across to WD and Laura Cross to C we still had the possibility of bringing it back. We’ve been down by 10 before and succeeded why couldn’t we do it again? Well because we played poop and made even more mistakes and allowed the gap to lengthen again to 15. So not only was it a loss, but it was a loss that cost us the extra point of being within 5. A crucial point with the top 4 teams in Surrey so close.
A final score of 36-51 was disappointing but with our performance we can’t expect to take the win with the percentage of unconverted centre passes and number of unforced errors.
As a result of our performance we awarded the least poopy player (a title we realised we gave the winner the first time we played Fairlands last year back in October).
Least Poopy Player awarded by the team: Lauren Brown & Laura Cross
Opposition’s Player: Laura Cross
Coach’s Player: Refused due to said poopy performance