Yr 4 Foxettes Grapple with the Falcons

Sat 6 Feb : Thornbury 4: Foxes 3 and Thornbury 2: Foxes 0

Slightly below strength this week, 18 Foxes from the Year 4 Girls Massive headed north to Thornbury. It's further than you think (note to self). And sorry girls, your coach was late so our famous warm-up and team selection was sacrificed. Blame the result on that.

We started powerfully, two quick goals from Sophie M and it was starting to look embarassing. With the two goal cushion we changed lots of players around, producing some strong new attacking partnerships from Marielle and Molly H who hassled and pressured the Falcons, and Tia and Sophie C - who scored her first goal in the green & white Yay! It was a well matched game, with some lovely saves in goal by Abby, one of our newest recruits to the goalie gloves, and great defending, as ever, by Anna R, Ella T and Phoebe.

In the second half Thornbury took a couple of fine goals and suddenly the match was on. Molly R, Megan and Rosie found themselves in the thick of it, with some tricky Falcons to tackle - but tackle they did. It sounds cliched to claim the final result in this one - 4-3 to the Falcons - was against the run of play, but our girls deserved a better scoreline. Great to see Sophie C scoring from a lovely set up run by Tia.

Then came a tougher flight of Falcons, although one of the trickiest strikers seemed to play in both matches! With Emily C in goal, Anna R and Bryony in defence we felt confident, and certainly Sophie HR, Tia and Phoebe were getting the ball nicely up front for Sophie M and Emily T. But it just wasn't our morning - some strong attacks were repelled, we hit the woodwork and went just wide, and then the Falcons snuck a couple of cheeky ones past us.

But these games are still training, right? And we learnt a lot. Like running, looking and passing all the same time is harder than it looks. And that small girls on the other team may be more dangerous than bigger ones...

A year ago, this would have been a decent result. But these Foxes are hungry now, and have tasted blood (see last week's blog). I think they'll be back for more goals next time... Well played all.