Women’s 4s Match Report

01 Sep Women’s 4s Match Report

Women’s 4^th Grade faced off against MosHarbour at the lovely time of 9am at Olympic Park. A win here would more than likely secure a spot in the finals, so there was plenty to play for.

As often happens with these 9am games, we were a little slow off the mark. The Mozzies were full of energy, pressed us very hard, and put us under pressure at every opportunity. We were pinned down in our half for the majority of the first quarter, and couldn’t really seem to link any passes together. Ellie made some fantastic saves to keep us in the game, despite having the sun in her eyes. We finally succumbed to the pressure, though, with the Mozzies being awarded a short corner with seconds to go in the quarter. Their hitter went for power over placement, and even though Khalia got a stick to the ball, it ricocheted up into the top right corner. 1-0 down at quarter time.

The second quarter started with more of the same, but about 6 minutes in there was a distinct momentum switch. There was no particular inciting incident, but suddenly we were winning our one on ones, and our passes were finding players in space. We were finally playing how we knew we could. Our defenders got a well earned break as Pinney and Birdy started carving up the midfield, and Soph and Tegan made fantastic inroads up front. With a couple of minutes left in the half, Maya injected the ball into the D, and Soph got a feather touch on the ball to put it past the keeper, 1-1 now the score. Soph nearly got another, when a hail mary hit into the D with 10 seconds on the clock found her completely free. Unfortunately the deflection went straight onto the keeper’s pads, but our tails were definitely up leading into half time.

The momentum stayed with us in the third quarter, with our halves making damaging runs down the sides, our midfield out-skilling them in the middle, and our strikers outpacing them up front. We created opportunities aplenty, but our option-taking let us down at times, allowing the Mozzies to easily defuse the situation. Their keeper made plenty of saves to keep them in the hunt.

We had a nervy start to the final quarter, but consolidated quickly and soon had control of the game once again. Unfortunately, it was the same story as before; we were entering the circle with relative ease, we just couldn’t put the ball into the net. Although we were able to apply attacking pressure until the dying seconds, it simply wasn’t to be, the score remaining 1-1.

The result, as well as other results across the grade, mean that our finals fate is no longer in our own hands. We need to pick up a win next week, and Manly need to lose or draw in order for us to make finals. Not the position we wanted to be in, but we still have a chance to finish off the season on a high. Hopefully the hockey gods are smiling down on us next weekend.

Special thanks to Maya, Llew, and Izzy, who all doubled up from 5s. Your contributions were invaluable!

Best and Fairest:

3^rd Place: Khalia and Birdy

2^nd Place: Ellie

1^st Place: Soph