MATCH REPORT

Long Sutton started the match with 9 players against Grantham's 11. We started strong, making the ball do the work passing down the lines, but unfortunately in the first 10 minutes Sutton lost a player due to an injury, so went down to 8 players and no Keeper. After a spell of interuptions by the Umpires in the first few minutes the game finally got on its way. Grantham played some good balls working well to get round Sutton's defence Jill, Lisa, Helen and Jayme but they pressured the opposition out the D to play the ball safe. Grantham managed to slot in a a few goals by using there extra players in the D to out number what Sutton had. Sutton fought back hard and pressed with Emma working the line and base line with Frankie supporting her, the ball was crossed into the D on many occasions but Sutton managed to gain some short corners with. Sutton then gained short corner after short corner but were unable to convert them into goals with Grantham's strong keeping. Sutton kept pressing hard but with only 8 players each player had to work the whole pitch which they found hard as the game went on but never stopped. Unfortunately in the first half Sutton conceded to 5 goals but Emma got the first one for Sutton by slotting the ball in after it had been played in Grantham's D and she had managed to get on the end of it this put a smile onto the Sutton players.

In the second half, sutton were determined not to conced any more goals and stayed focused. Kate moved into defence from the midfield, pushing up Lisa and Laura to keep the forward strong, Sutton played well, passing the ball for Emma and Frankie to take into Grantham's D and hopefully make something but unfortunately couldn't. Grantham then managed to gain a goal from a short corner and another one shortly after by playing a 3 on 2. The defence stayed strong, with Grantham making breaks into Sutton's D Jill, Helen and Lisa pushed onto the players but as Grantham got time to shoot Kate put her self in the position of the goal keeper and started diving across the goal to stop the ball from going across the line and to keep the score down. It was a great second half as Lisa put in another goal for sutton by controlling the ball off the keeper in the air and putting it into the back of the goal. Kate then took tackling to a new level in hockey and spent most of the second half on the floor slide tackling the opposition just to make sure no more goals would go against Sutton. Jill cleared the ball well from the defence using Helen and Lisa which they played it up with lines to either Emma and Frankie, but after this the game ended with Sutton having 3 goals disallowed through out the match they came off the pitch with their heads up as they Played exceptionally well as a team and with only 8 players on the pitch.

It shows how well everyone played as no one could be picked as an individual for the Player of the match and so it went to the whole team after a great effort and a awful lot of running.