- Raining
- Wet
- Weak
Sam Bramley
Our final pre-season friendly saw us take on a youthful Harlow Town Ladies at The Grange, where early drizzle changed into full on rain for most of the match.
We were missing quite a few squad members due to holiday and injury and could only field 3 recognised midfielders, which gave Steve and Andy plenty of headaches working out a formation before the game.
We went with a makeshift 4-4-2 and within 3 minutes Harlow had pounced onto a ball we couldn't clear and they finished well with Katie having now chance at all.
Their lead wasn't to last long, Alice MacNicol crossed strongly from the left for Stacey who deftly found the net for her 3rd pre-season goal.
We were looking stronger as the game went on and the defence coped well with any advances from Harlow. Midfield were also working hard to break up play and the whole team were tackling keenly and decisively.
On 44 minutes, Jazzy was put through into the box but a fine save from the away keeper put the ball out for a corner and that finished the action for the first half.
Netherton were quickly out of the blocks in the second half and on 46 minutes, Rachel received a ball from Stacey and curled the ball into the net from the edge of the box. 4 minutes later, we were 3-1 up when Kerry got onto the end of a whipped in corner from Rachel. It was no less than we deserved as we were now dominating play.
A few half chances came and went and on 88 minutes a drive from Megan clipped the top of the cross bar. With a few minutes of injury time added, the day was complete when Megan put Hannah through on goal for her to find the net and get her goal account underway for the season.
This was another pleasing victory against a young, fit opposition.
We asked that the girls were strong and they were. We also asked them to dig in when it got hard as we had limited options on the bench, and they did. Several players played out of position from time to time but stood up and got the job done.
Player of the match to Megan today, as the only recognised central midfielder she stood strong and dug deep when she had to to control the match in the middle. But the whole team deserves credit, not one player let the side down today and we move into the season proper next week with real momentum.
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