Win number 19 for the ladies 1st XI

Ladies march on thanks to Take That, Mika, The Spice Girls and Elvis.

Once again a cold morning greeted the ladies 1st as they attempted to continue their incredible winning streak in today’s Derbyshire Ladies League 1 clash against Matlock 4’s.

With players still absent through injury and unavailability, today gave coach Taylor the opportunity to have a closer look at regular 2nd XI player Gemma, who in her debut game for the 1st’s held her own and suitably impressed .................

apart from the time she turned up! We meet 1 hour before start not 1 min !

But it was thanks to some excellent agile goalkeeping from the Matlock keeper that Derby were restricted to just 6 GOALS today.

Despite the absence of leading striker Anna Neilson the goals flowed with ease from Kath Lee (2) Capt. Marie Dymond (1) Amanda Petrie (1) and Super centre back Zoe (2).

Training on Tuesday saw the new penalty corner routines worked on and today proved too everyone just how important that session was. From 7 penalty corners in total the team scored 3 goals thanks to Take That, Mika, The Spice Girls and Elvis (you had to be at training to understand)

The presence of Zoe in the new routines saw her score the opening goal with an absolutely blistering dipping shot that even the umpires applauded and had the Matlock bench to a player standing in awe at the quality.

But this wasn’t the only story from the match. Once the game settled after half time Derby passed the ball around with quality and accuracy leaving Matlock clinging on in desperation to keep the score down, but everyone was happy with the 19th win on the bounce and the 6-0 score line.

Coach Taylor Commented:

No top goal scorer available, no influential Donna in midfield and still we take teams apart with apparent ease.

Without a doubt the most pleasing part of today’s game was the way we took the training ground onto the pitch. With a conversation rate of 43% on penalty corners everyone involved should be extremely happy with their roles.

Both Tash and Amanda were outstanding down the left side linking well and constantly causing Matlock problems. Taran’s workload up front again was one of total commitment to the team and deservedly won her the Man of the Match award and Zoe was superb in her ability to adapt to her new role on the corners with both her goals taken with style.

Nothing more to say really, I’m almost running out of superlatives for the effort this team is putting together under the leadership of Marie Dymond. We just have to keep it going until hopefully we all get the rewards we believe we deserve.

Brilliantly well done again today.

Andy Taylor

Ladies 1st XI Coach
Derby Asterdale Hockey Club