Ladies seconds exit cup to Raphoe

On Saturday the ladies 2nds welcomed Raphoe 1st over at Ards leisure centre for the 2nd round of the intermediate cup, with five team regulars not available the Comber girls knew it was going to be a hard encounter. 

Both teams started out evenly matched however Raphoe seemed to have the upper hand, consistently switching positions causing North Down to lose track of players and as a result Raphoe went into the break a goal up. Nothing but positive talk at half time as the Comber girls knew the match wasn’t out of their grasp. 

2nd half started out a lot stronger for North Down and some brilliant play resulted in Ali Miller getting her first goal of the season for the 2’s. North Down didn’t let down and no sooner doubled their tally with great quick auto passing producing Sasha Bell with the ball allowing her to try and cross the ball to the far post where in fact a Raphoe player conceeded and own goal. North Down tried to keep the heads down and continued to play strong however Raphoe was looking revenge and the switching of players paid off once again where the right back sneaked in behind the defence to take the game to 2-2, unfortunately it wasn’t long until the right back did her set play once again and caused North Down to fight the last 10 minutes chasing for an equaliser. As persistent and the North Down forwards were, it was not to be causing ladies 2nds to drop out of the cup and now will look forward to competing in the plate. Huge thanks to Beverly Brittain who umpired the match and well done to center back Karen Moore for another great game and getting Player of the Match.