19th October 2014 at Addlestone Leisure Centre
Report by Ross Davidson
SN2 headed all the way to Addlestone to face Woking in the second game of the season. James, Ross, Pippa and Nicola started in attack, with Zoe, Jenny, Simon and Jamie in defence.
The game started with high intensity from an experienced Woking team, who took an early 2 goal lead. The fast and strong nature of Woking’s play seemed to have taken SN2 by surprise with some wayward passing breaking up SN2’s initial attacking moves.
James pulled one back with a medium range short. Woking took their lead to six before the break with SN2 reducing the deficit by a long-range shot by James. Two missed penalties and free passes meant the team headed in at half time 6-2 down.
The team was clearly disappointed but captain Jenny regrouped the team and stressed that Woking were beatable even from this difficult position. They had many more shots than us and all of their goals had come from relatively long range efforts.
The second half started with much more structure in both divisions. Pippa scored an excellent medium range shot to take the game to 6-3. By this point, many more shots were going up and Simon was winning almost every collect against his opponent. The division was recycling the ball well, playing some neat passes and making Woking work really hard to defend against attack after attack.
The goals started to drop in, with Jamie scoring a long range shot and Nicola running in from a feed and putting the goal away nicely.
Matt came on for Ross half way through the second half. Shortly after, James scored the equaliser to take it to 7-7. Jamie’s second of the game took SN2 ahead to 7-8, with about 10 minutes to go. The Woking team looked shocked by the turn around.
Jenny’s excellent defending kept Woking at bay and the team held the lead for a short while. Unfortunately Woking pulled two back in quick succession to take the lead once again. Another SN2 penalty miss followed by a penalty scored by Woking at the other end signaled a disappointing end to the match with the final score ending 11-8.
The team showed great spirit to battle back from 4 goals down for the second game in a row. It was great to take the lead, which followed a passage of play where SN2 looked the stronger team. James shooting was great, Simon was dominant in collect (putting the training into good practice!) and Pippa managed to get her first goal for SN2.
Ultimately though, falling 4 goals behind in the first half against a strong Woking team meant it was a difficult task to turn around. But some much better attacking in the second half hopefully bodes well for the next few games when SN2 can hopefully get their first win of the season.
Girls
Jenny McGovern (C), Zoe Kennedy, Nicola Gordon (1), Pippa Bolton (1)
Boys
Ross Davidson, James Da Silva (4), Jamie Miller (2), Simon Mackie, Matt Forster (sub)