Report Author: Tilly Phillips

Game: Southampton Women vs Marjon (National Trophy)

Location: Jubilee Sports Centre

Score: 22-4

Date: 7/12/22

It was the first game of the National Trophy and a team full of far too many freshers piled into the Jubilee Sports Centre. Marjon pitched their play-under-protest form due to our shallow end not being deep enough, but captain Katie was still looking confident and gave us a much-needed pep talk to raise our spirits before the game began. 

The whistle was blown and Marjon were off to a great start, scoring the first goal in the first few minutes. However, our confidence was not lost as Jess gave us our first goal quickly after. This was followed by Natalia making a brilliant break-away and taking a shot to put us back in the lead. With some great marking, the Soton girls began to dominate the game, with goals from both Rhia and Natalia. Marjon made some good attempts, but Lottie made excellent saves and wouldn’t let them catch up. Rhia and Katie partnered up to give a great assist and goal for each of them. Katie got a beating on the back of the head as she dashed towards the goal and with her built-up aggression she made a powerful shot, but staying true to her name it hit the crossbar – she quickly redeemed herself by catching the rebound to score another goal and end the first quarter with a 7-1 lead. 

With no subs on the Marjon bench, their girls were beginning to tire coming into the second quarter as they shouted “we’re never playing a team of 7 ever again” – we don’t blame them. They found a new tactic with a lack of skill, lack of energy, but heaps of aggression so the Soton girls were in for a physical battle. Katie and her opponent thrashed around leading to a man up for Soton. After the man-up set-up being drilled in practice, the girls executed it perfectly – leading to Iris scoring a great first goal ever for the club. The game became a swim-off, trying to tire out the opposition. Rhia made a quick break away and shot but much to our confusion it was “not a goal”, Katie finished it off to secure the goal. Rhia, keen to get the goal she believed was rightfully hers, made another speedy breakaway – highlighting to all of the other girls why we should be going to her swim lane sessions. She scored. After an eventful few minutes of swimming, shooting, and missing for both teams, Natalia leaped for a rebound and got us our 11^th goal. Marjon scored a much-needed second goal, bringing them the confidence to push us hard and prevent us from shooting. It didn’t take long for Soton to get back in a rhythm and Katie scored 2 goals in quick succession to end halftime 13 – 2. 

With our win in sight, Katie had her first time out of the pool all year. With the Marjon girls looking depleted, 3 of their players refused to ‘swim off’ and decided to give a more hands-on approach by giving Natalia gets a 2-hand shove to the chest to try and knock her – she quickly showed them she is unphased by scoring yet another goal. After a severe streak of misses, Marjon shoot and up the score to 14-3. The cherry on top of their exhaustion came when Rhia finally got fed up and fought back in their wrestling match, leaving their player slightly drowned. Marjon’s pit defense left the pool to recover with what Rhia believed was blood all down her leg – she was relieved to find out it was only red athletic tape. The Soton girls were in the fortunate position of playing man-up for the rest of the quarter, Lucia made the most of this and scores her first goal for the club. Marjon successfully score again but this didn’t stop the Soton girls make a fast counter leading to a crossbar challenge from Katie and a rebound goal from Rhia. Marjon made another attempt, but Lottie caught it effortlessly. The quarter ended 16 – 4. 

The Marjon player returned to the pool for the last quarter making it 7 vs 7 and a tiring final quarter began (but we had a full bench of subs, so it was definitely more tiring for one side than the other). After a lot of arguing about who had to swim for Soton, Marjon won the swim-off. After possession changed hands a few times, Soton began to dominate and the pit became full of Soton players. Tilly took advantage of our new tactic and scored her first goal for Soton.  Another Marjon player tired out and left the pool, so we faced yet another man-up – Alex had been training us for this for months. Elise earned herself a major after retaliating to the kind words from her opponent, but this couldn’t stop Soton. Georgia made a great drive to assist Rhia and Tilly in securing another goal each, followed by one from Katie. With just two minutes remaining, Alex called a time-out and pitched us his plan for Lottie to do a keeper run. She executed it perfectly to drop the ball to Jess, leading to a goal. Desperate to have the last laugh, Captain Katie dodged 2 opponents and launched the ball into the goal as the whistle blows – always go out with a bang. The game ended at 22-4.

Another great win for the SUWPC women and high hope for the rest of the cup games to come. 

Man of the Match – Tilly Phillips, who scored both her first (!) and second (!!) goals for the club. (P.S. Tilly did write the match report, but it was Rhia and Alex who gave her MOTM – Tilly is not that cocky xx).

Dick of the Day – Jessica Grace for getting told off by the ref, whilst he had to explain the rules to her.

Names – Goals/ Majors: 

Charlotte Ratledge – 0/0 

Jessica Grace – 2/2 

Tilly Phillips – 2/0 

Rhia Perks – 5/0 

Elise Roberts – 0/1 

Georgia Skelton – 0/0 

Iris Bugnar – 1/0 

Jasmine Brown – 0/0 

Katie Magill – 7/0 

Lara Philpott – 0/0 

Lucia Ciardo – 1/0 

Natalia Tsouka – 4/0 

Rosie Ramshaw – 0/0