The Reds girls were back at the Hightown league today after a couple of weeks with no games. They were up against a tough Crosby Stuart side.

Their challenge today was to shrug off the last defeat; turn it around by tightening up their formation and develop their possession football play.

The first half was quite even. The play was a little end to end for our style and the players were urged to control possession. Some good pressing play in their box lead to the first goal of the game. Destiny’s quality first time touch around the keeper finished off some well composed football. Crosby soon equalised, taking us to 1-1 at half time.

The team talk just helped the girls regroup with their formation, be aware of some gaps that were being created and play their usual quality football that they have been working so hard at in training for the last few weeks.

The second half started a little more composed for The Reds and soon they went to 2-1 with a great distance shot from Gracie, swerving the ball past the keeper and just inside of the near post.

A small phase of end to end football left us out of possession again and Crosby pulled it back to 2-2.

Jas, from the goal kicks, mixed it up intelligently today, some short passes to help build the play from the back, again as we’ve being working on in training, and some accurate longer passes reaching our wide players. Along with pulling off some great saves and comfortable catches. One long accurate pass reaching Sophie, who with a great turn and shot took The Reds to 3-2. Sophie continues to work hard as a forward player and it’s a pleasure to see her finish with power and accuracy when she gets the opportunity.

After Chloe making some great runs down the wing, and taking a knock or two, already not feeling well, unfortunately had to come off. With no subs today The Reds were down to 8 players for most of the match.

Destiny was showing some great ball control and composure with driving runs down the left wing. Her developing ball control and fight to not to lose possession is growing in each game and is a joy to watch when she’s in control. Supported by Laura in the left midfield role, playing more of a defensive role today, strong in tackles, winning the ball back and making the transition to attacking football with some great driving runs and quality passes linking the play from midfield to forward play.

Gracie worked well up front, either holding the ball up and helping her team not to lose possession and making intelligent runs expecting the through balls from her team mates. Gracie also brought some creativity down the right hand side when asked to play there.

Erin D drove the team forward as we’ve come to expect from her. We saw some great individual runs through the middle when in possession and her desire to regain possession for the team when they didn’t have the ball is testament to the work rate, commitment and dedication of all these players that play for this team. For these reasons Erin D was a well-deserved Girl of the Game today.

Erin C and Anna were asked to be tight at the back and they managed that excellently. The goals against today were more of slight lapses in team shape rather than individual errors. Today Erin C not only showed her defensive strength but played some great distributed balls when playing out from the back, both short and long balls finding her team mates to start the attack. Erin was also unlucky to have a powerful shot blocked when she did have the opportunity to push up as she enjoys doing so much.

Anna’s defensive positional play and intelligence is developing in each game and the team is much stronger for it. Today she developed her distribution when regaining possession and this lead to the winning goal.

With the game now at 3-3 it was anyone’s game but we knew the quality of football that these girls can produce could get them the win they deserved. The girls were encouraged to play more possession football, simple passes and movement to help them drive forward as a team. And that’s what they produced to win the game. A connection of quality, simple passes starting from Anna in defence, worked through the pitch, finally for Sophie to pass to Erin D who in turn produced a wonderfully composed finish to take the game to 4-3. With not much time remaining the girls played out the match with confident, quality in-possession football.

Some wins have to be fought out whereby strength of character and ability prevail. This was one of those wins for the girls today. A gritty game tested each of them and they came through with flying colours.

Hesketh Colts FC

Hightown JFL

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