Sunday was the Albury Eagles U13 girls first league match of the season since clinching promotion back in April and 11 players headed up to Twickenham for a late morning game.
Without Seren in goal Stella stepped in as a replacement and during the warm up she repeatedly demonstrated what a capable shot stopper she is which gave the team great confidence. Although she had few saves to make during the game, her kicks out of hand were a real positive throughout.
The team started with a slightly different formation of 3-3-2 compared to last season. Before kick off the coaches reminded the girls that the focus for the season was; ball control, accurate passing and movement off the ball, communication, respect and fun!
The game started very evenly with both teams closing down space effectively and putting pressure on the attackers. Halfway through the half Albury found themselves in a sticky situation in their penalty box but Ruby was able to intercept the ball and use her powerful boot to clear the ball up field. Freya latched onto the ball and set off into the Twickenham half. She passed the ball to Ella who steadied herself and shot passed the keeper into the back of the net. From this point onwards Albury dominated possession for the rest of the half with Lyla, Freya and Ella all coming close but the Twickenham goalkeeper (their player of the match ) was equal to everything thrown at her, making a string of good saves.
Heidi, Tabs and Ruby disrupted all Twickenham attacks and looked calm and secure at the back. In the midfield, Maeve, Ria and Ella endlessly hounded the Twickenham players and broke up multiple attacks with the pressure they put on their players. Just before half time, another Twickenham attack was broken up by Tabs and the ball was moved through midfield and then to Lyla and Ella who found Freya unmarked to fire the ball into the back of the goal and make it 2-0 at the interval.
The second half started as the first had ended with a lot of Albury possession and attacks. Livs came into midfield and saw plenty of the ball on the right hand side while Freya continued to make inroads down the left hand side. However, the Twickenham central defender was equal to everything thrown at her and continued to make last ditch tackles and interceptions. Maeve, Ria, Ruby and Heidi continued to make great tackles and Tabs effectively covered across the backline when needed to win possession and move the ball into midfield. Cassidy came on for her first competitive football match and with her first touch intercepted a pass and moved the ball into our midfield. At this point, The Eagles reverted to four at the back with Lyla replacing Stella in goal for the final 10 minutes and withstood some late Twickenham pressure to see the game out. The final score was 2-0 to the Eagles - very well done to all the players

Star Player : Tabs