St Albans City South 0 - Kinja Rockets 3
Kinja Rockets produced a very dominant but lacklustre performance in sunny St Albans on Saturday morning.
With a full squad to choose from coach Pranay opted for a 3-1-4-2 formation which from the first whistle took total control of the game but had to remain patient as St Albans (SA) opted to set up a back 4 with 5 in midfield leaving a solitary striker who they tried to use on the counter attack but with no success.
The rockets used Indie on the right wing and Aimee on the left wing to good effect as they constantly created the SA rearguard problems, Along with Mia B and Guste controlling the middle of the park and with the long range shooting capability of Kasey and the speed and trickery of Nicole up front it was only a matter of time until the deadlock was broken.
Within the 1st 20 minutes Nicole had 2 good efforts well saved by the very impressive and influential SA goalkeeper, Aimee also fired over the crossbar from 8 yards when it appeared easier to score, Kasey had a long range effort turned around the post for a corner too but on 21 minutes the rockets were awarded a penalty after a good cross from Guste was handled in the penalty area and the rockets top scorer Nicole stepped up and drilled the effort past the keeper who dived in the opposite direction to give the rockets the lead they thoroughly deserved.
Regan, Alex and Audrey were excellent again as a solid back 3 unit and dealt with any counter attack well but SA still had a couple of efforts on target with 20 yard shots after poor clearances by Anna in the rockets goal but being the excellent goalkeeper that she is she dealt with them comfortably.
The SA management team were very vocal throuhout the 1st half, bellowing out instructions and encouragement to their players but this didn't affect the rockets who simply let the game be the teacher and made any decisions by themselves and on a whole every decision seemed to be the right one.
Despite the fact that the rockets totally dominated the 1st half it was just the single penalty that seperated the 2 teams as they went off for the half time team talk.
The SA back 4 sat very deep through the whole 1st half which meant that alot of the throughballs that were played forward by the rockets were simply colected by the goal keeper, Coach Pranay noticed this and we can only assume that one of the instructions at half time was to attack using the width of the pitch and get to the byline and cut the ball back to prevent the keeper acting as a sweeper keeper and this instruction worked as 7 minutes into the 2nd half the lead was extended to 2 goals, Lindsey attacked down the middle of the pitch and as she got to the edge of the area she slid the ball out to Indie on the right wing who crossed into the box and there was Joya on hand to knock the ball past the keeper to put the rockets 2 nil ahead with 30 minutes still to play.
2 nil soon became 3 nil as Joya scored the best goal of the game, She collected a pass in midfield and dribbled past 2 players and as she got to the edge of the area an intelligent run by Nicole dragged her marker with her which created a hole for Joya to run into which she did, Joya then avoided 2 last ditch tackles in the area before firing across the keeper into the bottom left hand corner of the goal.
Guste was hacked down in the area by a tackle that an NFL player would be proud of but the referee waved play on as Guste lay in a heap inside the area.
Nicole,Kasey,Lillian,Guste,Indie and Joya all had good opportunities to score but some great goalkeeping and brave defending ensured the game finished 3-0 to the rockets.
Even though SA did not want a repeat of last weeks result at the hands of Bishops Stortford and the rockets knowing that 3 points would mean they only need a point from the remaining 2 games to be champions, this game was played in an excellent spirit. The levels of sportsmanship shown by both teams was excellent, It was an important game for both teams but played simply as a game.
Well done to both teams.
Team
Anna,Alex,Regan,Audrey,Aimee,Joya,Indie,Guste,Lindsey,Kasey,Nicole,Lillian,Riley,Bella,Ashleigh,Mia B.