Ladies fifths drop first points

On a very wet, cold, dark and dismal Saturday afternoon a squad of thirteen young and old North Down fifth eleven players met at Regent House to play against Coleraine Ladies fourths feeling positive after their victory the previous week against Saintfield thirds.

Coleraine attacked from the whistle with accurate hard hitting passes going from their defence to their forwards.  One of these passes resulted in a very good conversion by Coleraine’s Hannah McAdam.  Not only were the North Down players freezing – they looked frozen to the spot!!!  And that was it!  1-0 to Coleraine at half time.

A motivational talk at half-time by captain Julie Fisher resulted in North Down starting to move to meet passes and eventually they won a corner.  From this, a neat pass from Lynsey Stevenson back to Fisher found the backboards to make it 1-1.

Coleraine counter-attacked, putting pressure on the home defence but they all coped well with only a few passes getting through for veterans Beverley Brittain and Linda Marshall to deal with.

North Down’s midfield counterattacked with some lovely ‘one two’ passes from Taylor and Stevenson but Coleraine held firm.  Great play from Coleraine resulted in a penalty corner and although the North Down defence tried hard to clear the ball with great saves from Linda Marshall they converted the rebound to go 2-1 ahead.

North Down never gave up and with only a minute to go their spirit showed as Karen Jackson made an excellent run on the right and passed to Ashleigh Hamilton who found the back of the net to equalise at 2-2.

Player of the Match: Ashleigh Hamilton

Many thanks to Joanne Irwin and Willie McAdam for umpiring.

Report by Beverley Brittain