Round 12: up against Monash again, a team that has been in the top group for years.
But we just beat them a few weeks ago in the Cup game. Was this a fluke? Can Monash re-establish their superiority?
No!
My concerns have been banished; this Trafalgar team is full of character that takes ‘guts & determination’ to another level.
Again our performance was relentless from the start constantly pressing forward and holding the ball in the front third with swift accurate passing Barcelona style. But the difference now is that we work to find that opening then pounce and score which we did 5 times in the first half while our goalkeeper barely touched the ball.
We passed the ball with precision that we have been working on in previous weeks but hadn’t quite mastered. This week we nailed it zigzagging passes out of the backline leaving the opposition floundering. But what impressed me the most was our intensity on our opponents constantly robbing their midfield of the ball such that they had very little impact on the game. This pressure will be the critical factor in future weeks as we press for further achievement.
Monash gained one of their best players just before half time and there was a noticeable step up in our intensity when she came on to lift her own team’s intensity. Our backline was nothing short of brilliant; we took up the challenge as if there was no threat at all and continued into the second half with the same dominance.
Less than half way into the second half we had scored twice more and the game died because our pressure had crushed the small amount of resistance that Monash had been maintaining. We had many more missed opportunities to score through superb team work but those don’t matter because the way we played was far more impressive than any scoreboard could show.
Monash 1 Trafalgar 7
Scorers: Tumi 3, Amanda 2, Bridget W 2
Report by Coach Tony Wyatt
