READING GIRLS 12-0 GUILDFORD SAINTS

The girls bounced back from the opening day defeat, with a comprehensive victory over a plucky Guildford outfit.

From the off the girls played their football, with the ball being moved around really well from all areas of the pitch.  The first goal arrived on 5 minutes.  Olivia Gardiner, who has settled in so well on the left hand side, fed the ball into Millie Bilcliff, who pulled the ball back to MEL Saunders, who marked her league debut with a composed finish.  Mel then returned the compliment 3minutes later when putting MILLIE through, who made no mistake. Shortly after, goalkeeper Kathryn Wood’s huge kick up field was cleverly allowed to bounce by MILLIE, who turned and burst through to make it 3-0 inside 15 minutes.

Having not played for a few weeks, the defence had been working really hard in training and was looking very solid much to the managers delight!.  Sian ‘Spoony’ Wylie and Rachel Stout were marking well and distributing the ball accurately, especially to the wide midfield players, plus Charlotte Muzeen and Kate Dennis have the makings of a very solid partnership at the heart of the defence and were winning plenty of tackles and headers!

The 4th goal arrived on 35 minutes.  Tiffany Brunton’s defence splitting pass was met by OLIVIA who strode forward, before planting a left footed shot into the corner of the net.  The last goal of the half was a long range special from TIFF that sailed into the roof of the net.  Unfortunately after scoring Tiff felt her hamstring tighten up and after a very impressive 35 minutes had to leave the field.

The second half saw   Reading score with their first attack.  Hannah Sheehan threaded a ball through to MILLIE who completed a very well taken hat-trick.  After a fine pass from Sophie Pearce, Megan Heybourne steamed into the box and saw her cross turned into her own net by the unfortunate Guildford for an OG.  MILLIE scored her 4th goal when neatly volleying home Hannah’s corner and MILLIE side footed in her 5th from another Megan cross.

The 10th goal was scored by HANNAH who placed one into the corner after being set-up by Millie.  The best goal of the game was scored from the marauding right back ‘SPOONY’.  Picking the ball up on the half way line she steamed past a couple of defenders and just kept going and going until arriving in the box, then crashing a powerful shot into the back of the net.  The final goal was typical of the team performance where no one got greedy, passes to team mates were made when players were in better positions to score. After a fine exhibition of finishing it was appropriate that MILLIE completed her double hat-trick, tapping home from close range after Megan’s unselfishly squared ball across goal, completing her own unique hat-trick of assists.

A fine all round team performance from the girls, who since the first game have worked so hard in training and most importantly never lost their strong team spirit.  Best wishes to Tiff who hopefully has not done too much damage to her hamstring.

LC