The Albury Eagles played their first friendly match of the season against The Barnes Ospreys. Barnes put together a scratch team for the fixture with 3 players from their tier 3 team and made up the rest from their squad.

The Eagles were playing at home the day after storm Darragh. It was a cold and occasionally showery morning with a gusty northerly wind. The Eagles initially mixed up the team with some players trying out new positions.

The Albury attack was functioning well, Lyla found an opportunity in midfield and with the ball to make an aggressive run on goal. The shot rebounded off the wood work and was then comfortably cleared by the Osprey’s defence. The next attacking line for the Eagles came from Amber who was relishing the opportunity to play higher up the pitch. A linking ball from Lyla found her making a couple of nice turns in the box and then unleashing a shot on target. The shot was saved, but a marker was laid that there will be goals to come from her.

At the other end of the pitch a lucky chip and run for the Osprey’s saw them get a corner. The Osprey’s hit an excellent looping corner into the box. As the ball missed the heads of the Eagles defenders a hand ball happened. The ref pointed to the spot for the Eagles first defensive penalty. Seren was composed and used her height well to cover the goal. The Osprey’s striker stepped up to take it and slotted it expertly in the top left corner. The score was 0-1 to the Ospreys.

The Eagles heads didn’t drop, they took the ball up for kick-off and upped the pressure. The defence started to sit a bit higher, with Emma on back left expertly working the offside trap for the Eagles. Bonnie played the first half as right wing back, and used pace to feed the ball forward to Ella. Ella found herself in a bit of space in the middle of the park and played forward initially looking for Lyla and then had a strong shot on goal just in the box. The netting bulged on the left side. The score was level 1-1.

The first set of substitutions were made with Maeve coming on in mid-field, and Liv moving to the left side. The Eagles moved into a more usual shape for the team, as the match was clearly on. Lyla found herself going one on one with the Osprey’s goalie, with the subsequent goal disallowed due to offside. Her boots were hotting up, five minute later the Osprey’s were having to kick off from the centre as Lyla had found the target.

Half time score was 2-1

The second half was the Eagles best half. The Osprey’s goalie was worked hard, the defensive balls from Ruby started to link up with the mid-fielder of Liv, Ella and Amber. The speed of Liv on the right caused numerous problems for the Osprey’s and finally the ball hit the target for Liv after a one women run. Heidi had a strong second half playing wing back and providing the ball for Liv. Stella in midfield caused the Osprey defence to assign two defender to her when she was on a charge. At the end of one of Stella’s charges Freya ran strongly onto the ball and volleyed the ball off the shin for a beautiful goal.

Maeve ran their defence ragged, her pace and skill cutting through the midfield. A goal should have come for her today, and it will another day.

The player of the match was Lyla, the final score was 4-1.

(There was some confusion over the number of goals scored by Liv, only one is in the report although two were reported by others)