North Down Ladies 1st XI welcomed Mossley to Comber Leisure Centre on Saturday for the semi-final of the Senior Cup. Despite North Down’s focus this season being on the league, the girls were keen to secure a win and get to the final.
North Down had an excellent start to the game, playing some of their best hockey this season. Players were stringing together passes and there was particularly some excellent play down the left-hand side through Heather Brittain, Bethany Burrows and Rachel Murphy.
Into the second quarter, North Down continued to settle into the match, playing most of the game inside Mossley’s half of the pitch. Despite this, the girls were unable to capitalise.
Mossley slowly started working their way into the game in the third quarter and despite some wonderful defence efforts from Bethan Crawford, Alex Boyd and Rachel Mornin the Mossley striker Lucy Campbell managed to evade them all to push in what became the decisive goal.
During the final quarter North Down changed their tactics to push more players forward but Mossley had well and truly parked the bus, putting everything on the line to hold onto their 1-0 lead.
The game finished 1-0 to Mossley and North Down wish them all the best as they take on Priorians in the final. Meanwhile North Down look forward to securing the other half of the double when they play their final match of the season against Bangor on Friday 25 March.
