A tough day at the office for Hampton Rovers Women at the picturesque Camberwell sports ground. A very nice oval with the exception of the rock hard cricket pitches in the centre. The day didn’t start well with two late withdrawals causing emergency call ups for Vanessa and Grace.
We have lost Gaby to an overseas posting but regained Amy as a midfield dynamo. We came up against the top team in the division. Old Scotch were clearly not playing their second year of footy. They were clinical with their skills and very fast with their running. Hampton had no answers to Old Scotch’s skills early on and by the time the girls realised what had hit them it was quarter time and Old Scotch had 7 goals on the board.
After a quarter time reminder to believe in themselves and play with confidence, the Hampton girls upped their intensity and Old Scotch found it a lot harder to score. The girls flooded into the backline and tackled strongly forcing Old Scotch into errors. Fran was moved onto the ball and she moved the ball our way regularly but had to sit out the second half with a knock. We still hadn’t scored at half time but the girls didn’t drop their heads.
After a well-earned rest at half time, Hampton finally pushed the ball deep into the forward line for an extended period. Desperate play resulted in two points coming our way before Old Scotch finally managed to clear the ball and our busy backline was called back into the fray. Carla was sent to tag one of Old Scotch’s better players and she did a good job of restricting her influence.
In the last quarter Chloe Mc and Nessa were moved into the backline.
With Chloe Mc and Bianca marking everything that came their way and Nessa getting some good clearing kicks away, we managed to hold Old Scotch scoreless for 19 minutes and 59 seconds. With 5 seconds to go in the match Old Scotch sent a scrubby kick forward to a two on two in the goal square. The Hampton players rushed at the ball to kill it but the ball took a wicked bounce over their heads straight into the waiting forward’s hand who duly kicked a goal on the siren. A tough end to a tough day, but a day when the girls really knuckled down and spent all their petrol tickets.
Despite the scoreboard the coach really felt many girls showed a lot of improvement. Even throughout the game the improvement was obvious. The Hampton team never stopped trying and gave their all. It was a solid team effort where everybody contributed something. Another learning experience which hopefully holds us in good stead for the rest of the season. Re-grading will occur after this game so who knows if we will see Old Scotch again this year, if we do, we will be ready!!
Chloe Mc had a great game, especially in the last quarter when she asked to go back, to take out our best on. Other notables where Lucy T, Bianca, Zara, Chloe Mirr, Lizzie, Naomi, Amy, Fran (1st half), Ness (2nd half).
Thanks to Alia for acting as runner, Maddy Lewis, who had her first ever experience of Women’s footy and became goal umpire for the day and to the other volunteers who helped out.
It was nice to see a few of the girls out Saturday night at Vic’s birthday gathering. Not sure if they were celebrating or drowning their sorrows, but team spirit was evident again.
OLD SCOTCH 15.12 (102) HAMPTON ROVERS 0.2 (2)
Best Players: L. Timmons, C. McLaren, B. Lenarcic, A. Cullen, Z. Phillips
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