Narrow Misses...

The Ladies 1s travelled to their penultimate away game back in London to play 2nd in the league London Wayfarers.

A huge start from Ipswich surprised wayfarers as they found themselves defending their circle early. Forward Georgia Harrold, narrowly missing, connecting with the post. Ipswich moved on and earned another goal-scoring opportunity. Another close miss off the top from India Goodman. Wayfarers trying to regroup, they get some way up the pitch but quickly slowed down by Ipswich again. Piling on the pressure, Ipswich pushed through to get another circle entry with India North firing a shot across the goal mouth. Only to be lost opportunity as no one got on the end of it.

Second quarter and Wayfarers fought Ipswich for the upper hand. Ipswich started to lose the possession game and not fill the gaps, allowing their opponents to creep into the circle. Some corners awarded to Wayfarers but Ipswich dealt with them easily, with POTM, GK Ali Barham beautifully clearing them away. The girls kept working and trying to execute the game plan. Some lovely passing play from Ipswich and working the ball up the pitch but unfortunately the ball got away from them. Ipswich didn’t give up though. Half time and still 0-0.

As the game developed Ipswich kept their battle up; more corners defended, pressing well and kept their composure. The latter part of the quarter, Wayfarers found a scrappy goal that (lucky for them) went the right side of the post. That was a hard one to take after such relentless work from Ipswich to deny their chances. 0-1.

There was still plenty of time for Ipswich to get back in this. Ipswich started to run out of ideas but despite that kept working on it. A mis-trap from Wayferers’ defence earned Ipswich their final chance. Forward, Charlotte Yates carried into the circle with fellow forward, Lizzy Wheelhouse right with her. Lizzy gets the ball a metre from the goal line but Wayfarers kicked back into defence mode and dealt with it. The final whistle blows with Ipswich having to go out defending 3 corners, Ipswich thought Wayfarers had plenty from their one goal. 0-1 end result.

2 brilliant stats from Saturday’s game:
100% success rate on penalty corner defence.
The rest of Wayfarers’ results in this season, with all their wins (bar one), were with a bigger than 1 goal margin. The last time Ipswich played them, a hefty loss of 1-5.

A big statement was made on Saturday, something Ipswich should be proud of it in a positive way. Now to take that performance into the rest of the season and gain some more points…

Ipswich go into back to back home games, first up is the big one, East London. 2pm. TR. See you there.