Wizards Girls U13's Match against East Grinstead

That performance as a team was the best that this group of girls have played. In the first half we played with a lot of intelligence and skill and really showed that we were a match for the East Grinstead side. They had some tricky players that asked questions of us, but we generally kept them at bay and if they did get free then Ella repelled them. They started strong, but as the first quarter went on we became stronger in the middle. We were industrious and never let them settle.

One of the great things that we did for the entire game was to use our wings on both flanks where we regularly caused them problems. The entire midfield of Libby, Ava, Luna and Freya all added to the game and the working together in tandem was a joy to see. Then attacking down the flanks and in the middle Emily K, Elena, Clover and Liv were causing their defence problems. Eventually a chance that we created was put away well by Liv when playing the ball between the goalkeepers pads. The second followed quite quickly after a great break from Emily who drew the keeper to then slip the ball to Liv who had a empty goal to tap into. So at half time all was looking very rosy.

Unfortunately, in the second half we lost our discipline in a really key error 'the ability to defend' we just were not savvy enough to realise where the dangers were and let them in too easy. We will need to work on that in the coming weeks, but it will hopefully be a good learning tool to experience that. So okay they scored 4 unanswered goals, we still created chances and could quite easily have pulled it back but it wasn't to be.

I would just like to call out a few players for special praise because i personally have never seen them play to that level and maturity before. It brought a tear to my eye, when you put in the effort into coaching the girls and then you see them bringing it into the game it's fantastic.

Elena, Bruna and Clover you had great games, but for me I have to pick out Freya. I've coached her for well over four years now and to see her play like that has left me smiling every time i think about what she did. Keep it going girls.

It says a lot about the levels of achievement when Liv scored two and I didn't put her in that group, sorry. Let's see how we can get on next weekend. Bring our 'A' game and eradicate the defensive errors and we will be fine, fingers crossed.