Swifts extinguish Monifieth's fire

An overcast Saturday in Perth, but the rain held off to give the girls a chance to show off their skills.

Having won a convincing victory against the opposition's sister team, Monifieth 13s, a couple of weeks ago, Jeanfield's girls were eager to see how they matched up against Monifieth Fire. With just a couple of call-offs for the Easter holidays, the girls were close to full-strength.

The early stages of the game saw Jeanfield stringing together excellent phases of passing play, with Eilidh Davies on the left wing in particular keeping her opposition working hard. Eilidh's control is at times exquisite, and she continued to turn players inside out today. However, as the clock counted through the opening 8 minutes, neither team had been able to find the net, although Abbie Ferguson had come close on several occasions, and the home side had also forced a couple of corners.

In the ninth minute, however, the scoreboard started to tick over, as first Jeanfield and then Monifieth found the back of the net in quick succession. The home team's goal came from a powerful left-footed shot from Eilidh, following a neat pass across the box from Katie. And from the restart Jeanfield immediately threatened again, but the Monifieth goalie fielded the ball well. Launching the ball directly upfield, she then gave her team mates the perfect scoring opportunity, which they took to punish the home side's slight moment of inattention.

Restarting again, Jeanfield immediately made their way with crisp passing moves into the opposition box, and Abbie was unlucky to be denied by some excellent goalkeeping.

By this time, the teams had settled into their respective patterns of play, with Jeanfield's smart passing in midfield and great driving from the wings contrasting with Monifieth's style, which was, however, equally effective. And it was a robust Monifieth attack that led indirectly to their second goal on 18 minutes. A break down the left was dealt with effectively by Beth Dakers in defence, and she hustled the Monifieth attacker well into hooking her shot four or five foot to the left of the target. Inexplicably, and despite the protestations of players and both sets of coaches, the referee blew for a corner rather than a goal kick. Beth calmly cleared to give Monifieth another, this time well-earned, corner kick, but a mix-up at the front post saw the ball spiral into the back of the net without having touched another Monifieth player after the kick was taken. Going down to a goal like that can dishearten young teams, but it only served to make Jeanfield even more determined, and three minutes later luck was on the home team's side as a sliced clearance took a wicked bounce and Eilidh managed to get enough on to it to direct the ball past the keeper.

HT Jeanfield 2 Monifieth Fire 2

While deciding not to make any changes at half-time in this closely contested game, Jeanfield opted instead to reshuffle the pack slightly at the start of the second half, with Katie moving up front and Abbie dropping back to right wing. As in the first half lovely passing was the order of the day, and finally resulted in a goal to Abbie on 37 minutes. Having taken the lead, the home team then started to ring the changes, with Beth Allen coming on for Katie and Abby for Beth Dakers, and a quick reshuffle with Sky moving to right back and Abby moving into the middle of the park. The change in personnel didn't disrupt overly however, and the new players quickly started to push forwards. It was Monifieth, however, that got the next goal to draw level once again.

No sooner had the away team finished celebrating their equaliser, than Abbie had put Jeanfield back into the lead, scoring directly from the kick-off. Following her move to midfield she had been working hard to drive Jeanfield into the right areas of the pitch, and a magical run out of defence created a superb opportunity a few moments later. Eventually, she got her hat trick to make the win safe for the home team, and close out a great win for the girls.

Compliments too, to our opposition today, who battled hard and pushed until the end. It was an exciting game of football, player in the right spirit.

FT Jeanfield Swifts 5 Monifieth Fire 3