Newton Aycliffe Women v Rutherford Ladies

Today we travelled away to Newton Aycliffe Women sitting one position below us. We had a very bare squad seeing our spine of the team missing due to injuries, holidays and work commitments all falling in the same weekend. We knew today would be a tough test but the girls were up for battling to get the three points.

Theres no denying we made hard work of this game from the very first kick, doing stupid things which made things difficult for ourselves. Regardless of this fact we took the lead after 15 minutes of play with a tremendous goal from Scott. She ran the ball down the wing and had a shot from 20 yards out lobbing the keeper. We struggled to find the next goal seeing the Newton keeper deny us a lot of good chances. Finally on the 45th minute of play hardworking Wilson won the ball and played it through to striker Scott who struck the ball and beat the keeper for the second time this half.

Half time came and some tactical talk was seen between the team and the management, however this didn't seem to show in the first part of the second half performance. Newton started to cause a few problems for us seeing us miss kick balls or not quite getting enough on them when passing to team mates. About half way through the second half a Newton play broke, our defence stopped and called for offside as she was a good 5 yards off but the referee allowed play to continue and the player managed to beat Brown. Yes the goal may of been offside but it was deserved for us to concede as we didn't play to the whistle and i believe this was the kick up the bums we needed.

The rest of the game saw the girls pretty much on the constant attack but we just couldn't seem to beat their keeper, she had her hands to everything. Finally it was a scuffle in the box seeing Scott have a shot palmed off by the keeper which fell to Robinson. She managed to get the ball across the line giving us that all important third goal to increase the gap between our scorelines. The game ended 3-1 to us.

Player of the match was awarded to ful back Nicholson for her fantastic performance from start to finish, she proved a rock at the back and even offensively she was strong today. A great game by Charlotte.

Overall, a poor display of team work although some very good individual performances seen. A huge positive for the girls to come away with the 3 points against a strong side with a good core of ou players missing. Well done ladies.