ROSES STRUGGLE IN RUGBY

The Roses were missing Ellie, Evie, Katie, Lily and Poppy for this match. An early KO in Rugby, a roadblock on the A5… it felt like it might be one of those days in the winter chills at Butlin Road before we even got there.

The Roses started well but after 10 minutes Rugby scored with an unfortunate deflection off a Roses defender from a powerful shot which left Lyla with no chance.

1-0 quickly became 2 when a cross found the lively Rugby Town winger who finished high into the roof of the net.

Chloe G quickly pulled one back as she charged down the keeper and the clearance ricocheted off her into the empty net. Chloe has been off to a flying start this season, we are really impressed with her progress and she deserved this goal for her tireless running in the first half.

The next goal was an important one, frustratingly it went to Rugby, miscommunication in the Roses defence allowed a Rugby player in, the powerful shot stung Lylas hand and the ball trickled over the line despite Caris’ and Lyla’s best efforts to stop it.

An uphill struggle with a relatively inexperienced Roses team, in the second half the ask was to stop kicking it aimlessly forward which had been a feature of our play in the first half and to play like we train and to start passing the ball.

Second half we really tried to do that and we pushed bodies forward however we didn’t really test the goalkeeper. We had one through ball to Chloe G but after a heavy touch the ball found its way through to their keeper.

Rugby scored two more goals as we lost Lenna from defence with injury and had to shuffle players around to fill the gaps, it was a tough match for the Roses.

Player of the Match - Tilly

Tilly was awarded Player of the Match, in the first half she was kicking the ball forward without purpose but in the second half she took critique and guidance on board and tried to find a Roses player with her passes forward and held her position well. Also a shoutout to Beth who before this game had only played 25 minutes of match football and worked hard whilst on the pitch.