Despite all the uncertainty in regards to the covid tier system and whether this would impact our game this weekend or not, it obviously went ahead as planned. With a few players missing this week, we bought Sienna McNeil and Lucie Freeman up who both played exceptionally well, so well done girls!
In the first 10 minutes it looked like it was going to be Kettering's day today as all the play was in their attacking third, clearly catching the Notts Trent students off guard. Sienna making an instant impact by getting a shot away within the first few minutes after a lovely passage of passing to get the ball to her. The visitors did soon find their feet however, and with a couple of unbelievably fast and skillful players, started to put the home side under pressure. We found out after the game that there were at least 2 players for the Irish national U21 team playing today so that made us feel a little better about the result, and as stated in the tagline, it could have been worse!
Anyway, the goal didn't dampen Kettering spirits and again the home side showed some of the wonderful hockey they have now been demonstrating every week. Kettering soon equalized as a ball in from Cath Irvin found Harriet Goswell in the circle. The initial shot from Harriet was saved, only to fall to Sienna who, with her back to goal, somehow managed to strike the ball with power straight past the keeper.
As half time was drawing near, the students earned a penalty corner which then led to another and another, with the latter being accompanied by the half time whistle. This meant that all their players pushed up for the corner and unfortunately the ball found its way into the goal as we went into the half time break.
Feeling positive and planning to go into the second half with the same intensity as we started the first, we certainly didn't feel that this game was all lost. If anything we felt that they were actually beatable!
The visitors though stepped up their intensity and moved the ball well between the phases of play, and as tired legs started develop the speed of them became increasingly challenging to keep a lid on. This wasn't to say though that we sat back under pressure for the rest of the half, we did win the ball with Cath Irvin particularly intercepting and distributing well, and Georgie Jones being an attacking threat down the right. A string of penalty corners were defended well by the defensive team, aptly led by Stacy Hall and Kate Metcalfe in goal, who ensured that some of the overly flashy attempts at goal were saved. It was however a reverse hit that was making its way into the top corner that was saved, to then fall to a waiting player who tucked the ball neatly past Kate; very annoying!
Nott Trent then added their 4th via another passage of play that saw one of their players drive into the circle and the decision to close down and attempt to make a tackle just being a bit too slow off the mark, allowing her the freedom to compose and score a good goal. Kettering did have a another opportunity though to draw one back as Sophie Reynolds was cynically tackled/fouled in the circle which resulted in the awarding of a penalty flick. With everyone retreating from taking it, Sienna stepped up to add another to her tally. We wont describe the flick itself, but lets just say, it went in and that's all that matters!
As the game fell into the last 10 minutes it was clear that fatigue was setting in which wasn't helped by the fact that we were 1 sub down due to injury, and the students didn't seem to slow down at all, so it was frustrating that a final goal was scored to give them their 5th and final goal of the game.
There are some games where you do have to just hold your hands up and applaud the opposition who were very good today, but in the same breath, although we lost, we should be congratulating ourselves too as once again we showed that we are able to compete and create chances against these types of teams. We could again have scored more than 2 if we were more clinical with the opportunities presented to us, and will again look to work on this in training.