It was a pleasure to welcome Southwick back to our league after their venture into the league above last season! We knew it would be a tough game, but with the support of newly appointed coach Gubs on the sidelines, we were ready to get cracking!

It was a strong start for the 3s with some silky passing amongst the midfield diamond of Lizzie, Goldie, Naomi, and Nina - what a pleasure it was to have the dynamic mother-daughter duo back on the team again! One half of our captain duo made the step into the forward line this week (spoiler, it wasn't me!!) and after around 10 minutes of relentless pressing by the forwards, Gabi managed to nick to ball off Southwick's backline and snuck it beautifully into the back of the goal! Luckily (or not) for Gabi, this now means she has been promoted to our forward line for the foreseeable future, accompanying Rhi to hopefully score lots more goals! Unfortunately for us, the goal wasn't the only thing we gained from this half. A sneaky deflected ball ended up striking Nina in the jaw (like mother like daughter) and mere moments later, Lucy was down from a shoulder injury! Luckily both were okay and ended up returning to the pitch later on. Also unfortunately, Southwick capitalised on a brief lack of concentration from the team and managed to score twice before the half time whistle - once from open play, and the other from a short corner. This left the score at 2-1 at half time.

We came back out fighting in the 2nd half, calming down our passing and remembering to utilise the switch round the back - a lovely display of composure from our back line of Lucy, Emily and Isla. Our midfield worked tirelessly to work the ball up the field, with super subs Sophia and Emma Fuller coming on to provide some key passes and interceptions. Rhi and Gabi both had some very close shots at goal, but some great saves from the Southwick keeper denied us time and time again. Before half time was up, Southwick managed to sneak another goal in from a short corner, much to the disappointment of our defence who had worked amazingly hard all game. We also had another heart-wrenching moment in the second half when one of our key players, Sara Riley, went down with a hamstring injury. Wishing you a very speedy recovery, Sara - your tippy-tappy skills will be greatly missed by us all!

Players player was split three ways this week, with goal scorer Gabi and our super-defender Emily both gaining some votes. But in the end it was, once again, our star keeper, Freya!! Another outstanding performance from her!