After a disappointing performance, despite the win, last week, it was absolutely essential that todays game wasn’t necessarily about the result but the performance. We give our time and pay our money to play a game of hockey every weekend so we want to enjoy it! We can only control the controllables and that for us is our own effort and determination. Feeling lifted and positive we walked onto the pitch feeling good.

Peterborough took Kettering by surprise in the first few minutes as they moved the ball well, being led by their centre midfield player who moved the ball well. Once we identified who the game-players were however, we were pretty good at shutting the play down, making it difficult for the home team to then find their passes. Lots of passes out wide went off the side lines and Kettering remained patient in the face of what could have been a rather frustrating game. The umpires set the precedent with the 5m rule in the 25 as two of Peterborough’s players saw a green card within minutes of each other for not retreating, which was actually down to the positive and intelligent play from our own players to take the free hit quickly.

Eventually Kettering did open the scoring after a few near misses through a penalty corner. A change of personnel at the top saw Toni receive to feed to Harri on the right, whose strike across was neatly deflected by Steph to give us the deserved lead. This lead was however short-lived as Peterborough found a way through after a turned over free hit and then a bit of a scramble in the circle. They were ecstatic at this and were ready to come at us again. Kettering however held strong and showed some of the best patient and structured play we have seen so far this season.

We were soon to take the lead again as a strike from Cath from outside the 25 was powerful enough to find Toni unmarked in the circle, who took the ball to the right to then beat the keeper at her near post.

As the half finished we were all feeling positive and ready to continue our play, with it being a lot more communicative and supportive across the whole of the pitch and voices being heard from everyone.

Kettering stepped it up a gear in the second half and made a number of positive runs and moves in the circle albeit to no avail. A number of penalty corners were awarded but we couldn’t quite make them count. Peterborough did start to push back near the end of the half and won a few penalty corners themselves but these were dealt with well by the defensive team. In the knowledge that we were winning, Kettering just squeezed the opposition in who then found it hard to get the ball out, and we slowed our pace when taking free hits and side lines as we knew we had time in our favour.

A number of aspects of the game worked well today, in particular the transfer across the back which player of match Emma R controlled and managed to excellent effect. Other worthy mentions were Georgias amazing 3D skills to keep the ball from going off the back line, Isla getting stronger and stronger with each and every tackle from the LB position today, and a positive debut for Eleanor fulfilling her defensive duties too. We should also give a shout out to Mr Robinson for being todays cheerleader and giving us that positive reinforcement we often need from the sideline!

Getting another win was fantastic, and we could be annoyed that we didn’t finish more of the chances we had, but what made it even better than the win today was the fact that everyone was smiling at the end of the game and we all came off feeling like we fully deserved the win today!