Birkdale United AFC

The Ladies’ first away trip of the season saw them make the journey along Otterspool Promenade to Jericho Lane, to face high-flying Dingle Ladies. The Ladies were without Birnie and Lloyd from the previous game but had Waring back to take her place on the bench. Noel and Dave decided to give McEvoy a start after her impressive display in the previous game.

The visitors started brightly but were finding two things difficult – namely the small nature of the pitch which gave them no space to work in, and the very physical nature of the opposition. As the half went on the home side began to grow into the ascendancy and Hesketh made a number of excellent saves. However, she could do nothing about the way in which Dingle took the lead, as a clearance from White was blocked at point-blank range by a Dingle forward and rebounded into the net at such a pace that it was past the keeper before she could even move.

The visitors were shaken by this and the home side swiftly doubled their lead with a long-range shot which swirled in the wind and dropped over Hesketh’s despairing dive. The Blues rallied and showed a lot more after this, and were unlucky not to score through Cooper and Gillingham. However, it was the home side who further increased their advantage when the visitors lost the ball in midfield and fed the ball to the right-hand side, with the forward finishing with power and precision. That saw the Ladies come in at half-time three goals down.

Noel and Dave spoke to the Ladies and told them they needed to close down quicker and be more combatative in the second half. They still weren’t out of the game and needed to strike early in order to make a statement. The next goal would be crucial.

While the first half had admittedly been a below-par performance, the same could not be said of the second half. Birkdale were first to every ball and worked incredibly hard while moving the ball quickly and accurately. They got a foothold back in the game after five minutes, when Waring fed off a through ball from Griner and held off her marker powerfully, only for her to be on the receiving end of a late tackle just inside the area. While Waring did not go to the ground, the referee deemed the tackle to be a foul and awarded the penalty. Griner converted the spot-kick with accuracy and it was game on. Shortly afterwards, the deficit was but a single goal. A neat passing move involving Jackson and White saw Griner feed Cooper who took one look and then lobbed the keeper from 20 yards for an excellent goal.

The Ladies were buoyed by this but had to be wary of counter-attacks from the home side, but the defence and McEvoy in particular dealt with these extremely well. There was then controversy as a Cooper shot was spilled by the keeper and appeared to all present to go into the net and come out of the side of it, however the referee did not award the goal. The game became quite niggly at this point and there were a few late challenges as tempers boiled over. However, with eight minutes to go the comeback was complete as Waring cut in from the left and crossed the ball into Jackson, who lifted an accurate shot over the advancing keeper.

Both sides had further chances to win the game – with the home side having a couple of free-kicks in dangerous positions – but in the end the game ended in an exciting draw.

Noel and Dave told the players that they had been very proud of their second half performance, in terms of the quality they had displayed but also the attitude and commitment they had shown. It was a clear sign they were acclimatising to adult football. They should take great heart from their display and put it into the forthcoming games, starting next week against Tranmere.

The Player of the Match, awarded by Dingle, went to A. Cooper.
The Manager’s Player of the Match went to A. McEvoy.

The team was: Hesketh, Davidson, Coulter (c), Tuakli, Cooper, Dixon , Jackson,  Granby, Gillingham, White, McEvoy, Waring, Griffiths and Griner.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Match Reports 09/10. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.