Women's 1st Team vs Bath - Cup 1/4 final

Who doesn't love an away day?

On Sunday, the women's 1's faced their toughest opponents of the season. Meeting in Next car park at what felt like the crack of dawn, it didn't seem like everyone was particularly thrilled to be there! Not helped by recent injuries, the planned squad of 14/15 was depleted to just 12. The bus down to Gloucester was jam packed with excitement and anticipation. What was Meggo writing on his whiteboard? Why did Livvii buy the strawberry jammy dodgers (don't bother)? Will Sarah wake up before pushback? Did Daisy pass her GCSE Biology paper she was doing on a clipboard? Will Harriet get her artisanal scotch egg from Gloucester Services? Did Maia have her water bottle? The atmosphere was electric!

Upon arrival it was determined that the University of Bath have put all their money into the tennis and netball courts and as a result the changing rooms were stuffy and smelly. The perfect location for the team talk was in the corridor, just outside the toilets. After Meggo's best attempt to sound like Claudio Ranieri (2015/16) we were ready to play. The warm up was complete with no further injuries and after a small delay due to there being only one umpire, the game began.

Both teams started strong, Bath pressing very high and putting the Leicester defense under a lot of pressure. Some lovely triangles of passing from Liv, Emma, Daisy, Maia and Katy meant we made it out of our 25 with some consistency but their well organised press meant it seemed to come straight back at us! Eventually the pressure told and a loose pass was intercepted, one killer pass into the D just right of centre meant their forward scored the first goal of the game. At this point it would have been very easy to have heads down and resign ourselves to heavy away defeat. The girls were not beaten yet! Amy and Freya had to put in way more than their 10,000 steps flying up the wings but also working so hard to help out defensively. The shape and discipline in defence meant that despite having less possession, Bath had little to no chances. 

After a successfully defended short corner a quick and long ball found it's way to Freya, unmarked, just inside the Bath half. Driving forward with 3 other players in support and one 1 defender and the GK to beat. Freya kept her composure, didn't force the pass and strongly carried the ball forward. Driving into the 23, Lauren Ellis positioned herself perfectly for the pass. As the defender committed to closing down Freya, a simple but easy to fluff pass to Lauren was the best option. Freya made the pass with ease and a simple sweep from Lauren meant we were level!

A half time team talk with fruit pastels and tangfastics set us up perfectly for the second half. Katie had a last-minute question about who she was marking (no idea what she had been doing for the whole first half), V gave some insights from the goal and we spoke about route one hockey to try and break through the press. Back out for next 35 minutes!

A largely uneventful second half ended goalless. One memorable moment was Lauren shrieking at their defender after she attempted to play good old British Bulldog with her, ignoring the ball and almost rugby tackling Lauren. This was the worst of it but much of the game was plagued by overly physical tackling from Bath. The umpires didn't seem as concerned though and despite giving Sarah a green in the first half, didn't dish out any cards or even very many fouls! Bath continued to dominate possession but Leicester defended beautifully and courageously to deny them any real clear-cut chances. The final whistle blew and shuffles it was!

Clearly well practiced (winning their previous round on shuffles) Bath dispatched three of their four attempts, Veryan managing to deny one of them shuffling to her left and smothering the shot. Leicester were not as successful but well done to Livvii, Lauren, Daisy, Katy and Harriet for all stepping forward to take a shuffle for the first time ever in a tense a stressful situation.

After Chris (Daisy's dad) finished wheeler dealing it transpired he had grabbed some tickets to the Leicester game that evening, therefore it was back onto the bus ASAP to try and be home for 19:00! Don't worry, he missed kick off but saw Leicester concede all three goals! The bus back was far livelier, Sarah was still beaming after finding out that an entire bottle of wine fits in the pockets of her new Y1 dry robe. MoM and DoD votes were collected, Maia earning DoD for delaying the bus and panicking only to realise she had her water bottle in her bag all along was a weak but valid reason on a day where everyone was so brilliant! MoM was difficult to pick, Harriet was fantastic all day and rightfully received the players vote while Daisy who showed amazing maturity and effort throughout picked up CPoM. Just about every defender picked up a nomination or two as they all played so well, Maia being the standout performer. Phoebe picked up a vote for her wok rate as she was rotated through the forward line, central midfield, wide right AND wide left. Afterwards there was the teambuilding activity of sharing embarrassing stories, most of which involved vomit in some capacity, and guessing whose was whose. The team full of wonderful athletes proceeded to devour a few beers, bottle of wine, ciders, chocolate biscuits, flapjacks, crips, more sweets and a couple of fanta fruit twist before descending on the service station for a quick stop. A meal deal, Subway, nachos, KFC and other healthy foods were purchased and demolished leaving the team well fed, watered and ready for bed as the bus pulled back into Next car park 11ish hours after we all met there in the morning. 

A wonderful display of talent and hard work. A testament to all we have built with the women's section over the last few years. Well played all!