Card proves to be turning point

Once again Sils were finding themselves having to get up earlier than they do for a school day with another dawn fixture this time against the Chairmans XI aka Leamington 2’s who they beat at home earlier in the season.

The game opened quite evenly with both sides playing some open hockey trying to prise open defences to force their way into the respective D’s. It wasn’t until ten minutes into the game the first piece of goal mouth action occurred when Leamington forced a short corner which was met at the top of the D by Ruth Dovey just as the ball was arriving and was quickly cleared with a good attack building from Sophie Price carrying the ball before slipping it to Samantha Cooper whose shot was competently dealt with by the huge Leamington keeper. Sils were starting to find difficulty in getting a cohesive game together and attacks were sporadic as Leamington went about their business and started to build pressure on the Sils backline. As pressure mounted tackles were flying in from the Sils and on one infringement Dovey was adjudged to have infringed the 5 metre rule once too often and was green carded. These two minutes proved decisive to the whole game as Leamington manged to force a series of short corners and without their number one running machine Sils Leamington were finding a few extra seconds to execute their short corner routines and manged to move the defence around sufficiently enough to score two quick goals. As Leamington gained in confidence Sils were rocking and the defence was at times becoming overloaded as the opponents seemingly streamed forward Joanne Brett was marshalling her defenders well and directing them to the main points of concern although still having to smother the od attack that broke through her defensive barrier. As half time came a confidence boosting rallying call was delivered and Sils came out to taking the game to Leamington, short corner after short corner was gained as the white tide battered the Leamington defence but whilst the corners were injected well the shots were either blocked well by the keeper or clawed off the line by the defenders but at least the chances were being made. The young Sils attack force were now hunting the ball down aggressively and by pressing in packs mistakes were being made by Leamington as they tried to get the ball away mistakes were being made and the Sils midfield were leaping on anything loose to make it theirs and Jessica Jecketts who by now was driving everyone on latched onto a loose ball as it emerged from a short corner on the 25 sprinted into the D and calmly drove home for a deserved goal after all the pressure.

But the joy was shortly lived as by pushing forward in search of an equaliser Sils were caught on the counter attack and overloaded in the D but despite a valiant attempt by the defence and the midfield getting back in numbers Leamington scrambled the ball home to extend their lead further. Not to be deterred Sils kept the attacks coming but several of Leamington players are “street wise” and the odd foot to stop the ball or the odd obstruction well away from the 25 taking one for the team was enough to slow the impetus down for a while.

Sils kept up the pressure and a great steal from Sophie Price saw her quickly advance up field and drew the keeper but the shot was agonisingly wide. With time running out Kate Huntington was pushed up front to add some speed and guile to the attack and the ploy was working as she pressed well, ran the channels and kept the Leamington back line on their toes for the remainder of the match.
As a further short corner were gained the injection and shot worked perfectly as Leamington clawed it off the line for the fourth time with the keeper well beaten. With time running out Ruth Dovey once again won a tackle drove into the D and dispatched the ball home for an interesting last few minutes although Sils were unable to create any more goal threats.

Good all round performance from Sils and one that they were extremely unlucky to loose. Since Christmas every single member of the squad has grown in stature and are much more confident on the ball and in the team environment only good things can come and with safety already assured some of the pressure can now ease.

MoM: Another no holds barred performance from Captain Samantha Cooper to once again claim the award and unlucky not to finish with a goal as well.

DoD: As usual an orderly queue was being formed to once again claim this award but just to show it is not age related we have a joint award. Georgina Dalby for her earth shattering comment that ti is ok to eat crisps as they 90% air anyway er ok moving on and the other recipient is our usual go to guy who although wasn’t present her actions were enough. Having flown over to Ireland in the week for work one had to immediately get back on the plane as we had forgotten to sort out Mother’s Day, poor Mother Ennis and hence was missing from the match.