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It was
a rainy and breezy day where Spurs Ladies were looking forward an easy
win against Northwood Girls, if past performance was anything to go by,
but it wasn't quite to be that way.
All 14
players were ready to do battle and the
Spurs Ladies first half squad was without Georgia Bruce, Charlotte Dean
and Olivia Keown.
From
the kick off, Spurs Ladies were put pressure by the Northwood Girls, who
took the lead after 10 minutes of the game. Some good solid
defending by Shianne St. Louis stop Northwood from extending their lead
two minutes later where a through ball from her found Ayse Mustafa with a one
touch play to Whitney Tango. Whitney turned the Northwood defender
and hammered the ball high into the Northwood goal. This was
quickly followed up by some one touch passing between Ayse,
Taylor O'Leary and Hannah Lyons on the left wing, which ended with a
shot at goal from Hannah, only to see the keeper produce a good save.
From
the kick out by the Northwood keeper, the ball was collected by Ayse who
squared it to Nikki, who ran at the Northwood defence down the right
wing before crossing the ball to Whitney, where she nudged the ball in
to give Spurs Ladies a 2-1 lead. Rosie Kmita showed courage
against the big Northwood attackers where her determination won her the
ball on the left wing which was quickly passed to Ayse in
midfield. Renata made a run to a central position, collected the
ball from Ayse and went on to score goal number three in the 17th
minute of the game.
Three
minutes later, Renata and Hannah were substituted by Georgia and
Charlotte. Straight away Georgia
was in action with a determined run down the left, but her shot was
saved by the keeper. From a
free kick taken by Shianne in the 25th minute of the game,
Nikki latched onto the ball from the halfway line, headed for goal, but
did not make good contact with her final kick of the ball. At the
end of the first half, Spurs Ladies left the field leading 3 goal to 1.
The
second half kicked off with a more determined look about the Northwood
Girls team. Spurs were
caught flat-footed on a few occasions and sometimes played the
opposition on-side when the ball was pumped high into their half of the
pitch. There are lessons to
be learned for the return match and the future against teams like
Luton
.
Whitney
completed her hat-trick driving in a shot after winning a tackle and
this was followed by a high dipping drive by Ayse to put Spurs Ladies on
a 5-1 lead. Molly Kmita
blasted a low left foot shot into the net for number six after Katie
Mills shot at goal was blocked by a defender in the penalty area.
Northwood
girls pulled back two goals within a space of three minutes, but with
five minutes of the game remaining, Spurs kept control to hold on to
their winning streak.
RICARDO
INNISS
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