Wandsworth A vs. Fairlands

Wandsworth A vs. Fairlands - 31-47 (by Holly)
Elka, Claire, Holly, Ellie, Jen, Cara, Tara, Rach, Emma

PP: Claire

This weekend was always going to be a hard one for the A’s against top of the league Fairlands, let alone with the wet playing conditions and fast winds!

The first quarter saw fairlands start strong with some long balls in to the shooters and very clinical play. Our defence answered back with lots of tips and intercepts to make their lives difficult and keep us in the game. After the first 7 minutes we began to settle in to some tidy play, with some fast passing in to the circle from Jen and cara with a couple of cheeky long over balls for ourselves. However fairlands got a good 4+ goal run that left us trailing behind them. Rach and Tara had good teamwork in the circle and battled to push through their tall attack, but a last second goal from the opposition pushed their lead to 7-16 at the end of the quarter.

I’m the second quarter the rain stopped and gave us more of a chance to go harder and mark tighter. Rach has some great movement and got her eye in, sinking nearly every shot and fighting for rebounds. However the opposition denied us a lot of opportunities through their great defensive playing shutting down our turnovers quickly and picking up easy loose balls. We came back with good physical challenges and a clean intercept from elka going straight to goal helping us stay on the game with the score. But as we began to sink further behind we bunched on court, causing unforced errors and leaving the score 14-25 to Fairlands.

The sun brightened up in the second half and some fresh legs gave us a new bout of energy that was much needed. A few turnovers at the start built our confidence as a squad to give harder, faster balls but the opposition fought back well. Fairlands kept calm and played some clinical netball, causing us some unforced errors on top of a lot of footworks (but we’re blaming the wet surface for that!). We worked hard as a squad to fight through Fairlands ruthless defence, but a couple of panicked long balls being lost in our circle lost us crucial goals and saw us down 21-36 at the end of the third quarter.

The fourth quarter was a good battle, as everyone grit their teeth, got loud on and off court (shout out to the bench) and gave us a good run of goals early on. However, Fairlands answered back well with a run of their own, eventually shut down by the teamwork of elka, Claire and cara through court. Our communication improved and we battled for every ball, to the point where I lost one over the wall (sorry!) but unfortunately we got the fire burning too late, leaving the final score at 31-47 to Fairlands.

Shout out Laura for being a great coach, you looked the part and even got told off by the opposition! And most importantly for the cake, it was fabulous.
Also thank you to everyone on the bench for making noise and keeping everyone focused!
It was a good match with lots of great play, but unfortunately we just let them get ahead early and struggled to recover back from it. they played a calm, clinical game and had their arms all over the place picking off balls.

PP was Claire and POM not done.