___Southampton Ladies 1st’s 21 – 1 Aberwystryth Ladies 1st’s__

Our third match of this close together set was our away leg against Aberwystryth on Saturday 21^st February, leaving at 9am to give us plenty of time for the gruelling 5 hour drive.

We arrived in plenty of time, and started warming up. Luckily, the sports radio show at Aber was live tweeting the entire match, so I will utilise their view to tell our story…

A fair question. We had lost by a single goal last year against Aber, and the prospect of having to travel the 250 miles home after a loss again was not an exciting one. However we collected ourselves, ran through our skinny-pool (4 lanes wide!!!) tactics and lined up for the start, full of nerves with our 8 players facing off against their 13….

…and almost immediately broke away from their defensive line and found the back of the net. A man up opportunity was given to Southampton, and yet again we scored. 3 more quickly followed, plus Aber’s 2^nd and last exclusion of the game, when we heard the table’s whistle;

 

With fewer exclusions, the second quarter continued in the same way, with more goals from Amy and Sam…

It was not looking good for Aber. Fantastic defending, in particular from Ellie, Shitbadge and Saf was allowing breaks and counter attacks time and time again from Amy, Sam and Katie O. Rosie held her own in mid-pool under some incredibly lightly penalised fouling, and the goals kept flying for Southampton.

The third quarter sees Aber get their first goal (an unfortunate one-on-one for Liane due to a very dubious tackle in our attacking end…), which is quickly answered by a backshot by Sam (8 I think, not 9) which was so beautiful, it needed to be tweeted.

The final quarter started on 12-1 to Southampton, and incredibly high spirits. The goals flew faster in this quarter than any other, as Aberwystryth took out their first team and allowed their seconds and subs to play for the pool time (we believe).

The match ended 21-1 to Southampton, with Aber putting up a solid effort too.

The journey home took us via an incredibly cold river islet for a photo shoot, and Mcdonalds for the valuable nutrition. Credit to Shitbadge for sticking to her lent guns and basically inventing a veggie burger for them to make her, and also to Sam for actually managing to finish her extra cheeseburger (we’re looking at you, not-so-biggest-girl Sofia.)

Goals:

Amy 8

Sam 7

Katie O 3

Sofia 2

Shitbadge 1

NO MAJORS!! WE MANAGED IT!