Ladies 1st Team Vs Doncaster

FINALLY! Thank goodness. The luck of having 2 Irish players has finally paid off and Boots have their first win of the season! It may have taken half a season but it is such a big step up, it was bound to take a while to settle in. This was an important and big game as the bottom of the table clash. Boots wanted to put right the 5-3 loss by Doncaster on the first game of the season. We weren’t sure whether it was a positive or negative that Doncaster hadn’t gained any points since that win but we weren’t going to let that affect us.

Doncaster started strong and created opportunities early in the game. But Boots were not going to take this and turned it on. Great runs down the right by Sharon McGucken and Becky Simms piled on the pressure, putting Doncaster on the back foot. A hard and accurate hit by McGucken just outside the 23 yard line found Claire Gribbin running towards the ball, with her back to the goal, knowing that the goalkeeper was well off the line and scored via a pirouette and a deflection. Soon afterwards, Boots maintained the pressure and with a brilliant run down the left hand side by Ellie Atkins, eliminating all of the Doncaster defence, with the goalkeeper closing her down, Atkins slipped it right to Nic Just who simply slapped it into the back of the net. For the first time this season, we were in the lead by 2 goals and were confident that this would be our first win of the season.

During the half time break, Boots reminded themselves that Loughborough Students were 2-0 up at half time last week and the game resulted in a draw. There was no chance we could switch off and assume we had already won. Doncaster, once again, started the half strong and held the majority of the possession in the second half. It took almost 20 minutes for Boots to regain themselves and take more control of the game and to get into Doncaster’s D. Doncaster were not willing to lose without putting up a fight and it was a tense last 10 minutes. A bad tackle on the P-spot saw Doncaster awarded a penalty flick. All credit to the Doncaster player who took the flick with it firing into the top left corner. Fortunately, it was too little too late for Doncaster. Boots had aimed to keep possession for the last 5 minutes to prevent Doncaster from scoring another goal. We achieved this alongside our first win of the season! Hopefully more to come…