Ladies 3rds Unlucky to Lose Out to Findern in the Cup

After such a promising start to the season we were hopeful that we might be able get our second win against Findern this season to progress through to round 2 of the Derbyshire Cup. Playing away at Findern is always difficult on two counts; firstly because of the awful pitch at St Benedict's (which really should be ripped up and relaid) and secondly because of the 'agricultural' way that Findern play. I was reliably informed after the match that Findern are a bit of a bogey team for Derby Asterdale (I'll remember that one for the future).

To give Findern a little bit of credit they were fast on the break, agressive in their play and good at getting bodies behind the ball defensively. They took the lead early on against the run of play with a counter attack (catching us defending a bit too high) leaving Megan as our last line of defence and slotted it straight through her legs (oops....). We weren't too worried as we did have a lot of the possession and recent games had seen us scoring lots of goals so we were sure that we'd get back on even terms soon. Unfortunately about 8 minutes later they managed to get the ball through to their danger player once again, with us desperately trying to tackle back Megan was left stranded and once again they scored via the gap in Megan's legs. It's fair to say that Megan wasn't the happiest player on the pitch at this point and the goal post took a bit of a clobbering

To our credit we totally kept it together and battled to get back into the game. A couple of minutes before half time Christina struck a great ball at the top of the D which made its way perfectly into the bottom right corner of the goal - we were right back into contention.

We made a change in formation at half time with the aim of filling out the midfield and keeping possession. One one level it worked as we put Findern under so much pressure for the full second half, unfortunately we just couldn't find the backboard. The midfield and forward line worked really hard for the whole of the second half and I can say that in defence we didn't really have all that much to do but it seems that it just wasn't meant to be

Findern were absolutely elated to have beaten us, however I'm reckoning that they won't be quite so elated on December 3rd when they line up against Belper 3rds You never want to lose a game but in private I had always been worried about the prospect of winning and playing Belper 3rds in the 2nd round so I'm actually quite positive that we now go into the plate to play the losers of the match between Amber Valley and Rolls Royce 2 (as long as it's not Amber Valley!!)

I think we can take some positives from the match, particularly the work rate from the team, our grit and willingness to battle and at times we played some outstanding hockey with quick passes, triangles, 1-2s and the like. However there were also some negatives as at times we were getting totally on top of each other, we broke down pretty much every time we got into the D and we really need to work on some short corner routines. We have a friendly next week against Amber Valley 2s and we can hopefully use it as a bit of a training exercise and try out some new ideas. I'm absolutely sure that we'll be back to our winning ways very soon and let's not forget - we're still top of the league!!

Thanks to Paul Neilson for umpiring and thanks to Gill for playing for us and having a brilliant game! Thanks to Sam, Jean, Claire, Sheridan and Jo for coming and supporting us (thanks also to anyone else I missed). I shall now try to get the awful sound of hockey sticks clashing together for 70 minutes out of my head in time to prepare for next week........

Final score: Findern 2- 1 Derby Asterdale Ladies 3rds

Player of the match - Rachel Huskisson
Donkey of the Day - Megan Price (for not being able to keep her legs together when a forward is approaching with a ball)

Squad: Megan, Annie, Steph, Rach B, Gill, Rach H, Tina, Rach L, Julie-anne, Fuzzy, Tracey & Emma