Womens 1 Vs Cambridge City 3

St Neots Ladies 1s had their first week of full squad availability, which meant they felt confident and intended to utilise the game plans worked on at training.

It began with a solid, if a little slow, passing game from Saints with neither team threatening a goal. Cambridge were the first team to up their intensity in attack demonstrating their team movement and confident strikers. This meant two goals were scored in quick succession, both coming from open play, one crossed in from the right finding free players in the D and the other a close-range reverse hit from a saved shot re-bound. This hit Saints hard but they did not give up.

Goalkeeper Mel Harding made sure that Cambridge City were denied further chances, one of her notable saves was when Cambridge were awarded a penalty flick. Mel read the penalty flick taker’s placement, doing an incredibly dynamic dive to the right blocking the ball and preventing them extending their lead - you could definitely hear the cheers on and off the pitch as we celebrated Mel’s achievement! The opposition had various attempts along with several short corner strikes but Mel showed her strength time and time again as she defended against the onslaught, which were all cleared by our hardworking defenders. There was spell of torrential rain closing in at half-time which didn’t dampen Saints’ spirit!

The pace was lifted in the second half and Saints had some good chances, such as a one-on-one with the Cambridge keeper, a missed post deflection along with several short corner opportunities that were unsuccessful. As a team when we passed quickly and delivered early into space we looked more threatening but possession was not consistent.

Saints’ goal came after some speedy attacking play on the right from Sophie Faulkner and Chloe Cundick. Caroline Osborne delivered a perfectly timed pass to Sophie, right of the keeper and she calmly slotted the ball into the goal for an attempted comeback for Saints. However, it was all too late as the clocked ticked down. Some tactical changes put Eleanor Pybus (our regular goalscoring centre back) up front in an attempt to get the ball high for an early strike to even the score line. Unfortunately, the match closed out at 2–1 to Cambridge. It was a tough game against a strong and skilful opposition. This meant St Neots had to battle hard throughout with most players being completely exhausted at the end of the game. Moving on, the team are certainly not down-hearted as there are always positives to take with this developing side as well as key lessons to learn and put into the next game. Bring on the next instalment!

Player of the match was our superhuman goalkeeper, Mel Harding, whose saving graces kept Saints in the game.