Earls Barton sneak home.

Earls Barton v Kettering 3rd IX

Kettering got off to a rusty start to the first league game so 2019, as they let the deft passing get all the way to the back of the net within the opening 20 seconds. Not to be deterred Shez Coe was on pitch cheering us all on and getting heads back up in order to put the faux pas behind us.
Captain, Kate Metcalfe, was able to keep the score line to 3-0 at half time, as she pulled off some fantastic saves and marshalled her back line of Charlotte Cattell, Evie Wharf and Ellie Mulligan well from start to finish. This first league match of the year saw the return of super star player, Janny Randle, back in the starting line-up, a welcome face and pace on the ball as usual.
After manager Kate Randle decided to change the line up for the start of the second half, it was clear that this game could be won. This spurred on the whole team and efforts were back to 100%, shown by the determined Evie Wharf who took a slide across the pitch on her derriere to reach a long ball, adding to her warm up injury of a ball to the bridge of the nose. From this change of pace, the wings of Lydia McCarrick, Meg Newlyn and Simran Kaur were able to find the wanting forwards of Ola Bednarczyk, Natalia Bedbarczyk and Claire Jones. There were some fantastic periods of play and the lovely threaded balls were tantalising close to being converted on many occasions. It took the pairing of Liz Randle and Shez Coe in the middle to push forward and open the scoring for the away team. Liz Randle sending the ball to the back board with a thud on two occasions. Narrowly avoiding a jug!
The home side did score another goal in the second half but were made to work for every pass by the restructured team which saw Julia in the sweeper position. This game could have been won with the team’s determination and structure in the second half, we just ran out of time! Final score 4-2 to the home team.

Lets see if we can get some of next week’s training into practice in our home game on the 26th January