Bitterly cold conditions for women's soccer

The Island hosted Mirboo North with a bitterly cold north westerly wind blowing across Newhaven Park.

A colder Sunday afternoon for soccer at Newhaven in recent years, could not be recalled.

After a fantastic win against Wonthaggi and coming off a two-week break, the ladies were very keen to take to the pitch for the match.

The Island knocked the ball around well early on and Pauleen was unlucky to strike the ball against the post from a nice cross from Kelly. 

Island had most of the play but couldn't seem to beat the keeper, the post, or the cross bar, finding all three on multiple occasions despite many nice strikes.

The Mirboo keeper was quite dynamic, well positioned and refused to be beaten.

Pauleen playing up front, held the ball up very well, playing it back to our midfielders to keep possession and allowing Island attacks to build from passing and possession in the forward third.

Eventually Kelly dribbled past the last Mirboo defenders and slipped one past the keeper (for 1-0) and the flood gates opened.

Some really nice team passing and quick feet from deep in defence from Finley, Kitt and Jess set up more goals with Abi, Finley and Pauleen also getting on the score sheet.

Finley went for placement to the bottom right, successfully side-footing the ball past the keeper and into side netting for a nice goal.
Island went to the half time break 5-0.

In the second half, Coco and Ailish made some great overlapping runs out wide from wing-back positions, putting in some great crosses and passes, and these two were well found by Kitt who showed her ability in the midfield, to cut the ball back against the run of play, calm things down, keep possession of the ball and distribute nice passes to space.

Jess kept the opposition guessing, by pumping some sweet long balls forward and to space and floating in some great corners.

Abi and Kelly covered a huge amount of ground in the forward half and combined very well together and with our midfielders and wing backs, stringing some lovely passes together with Ailish involved that resulted in goals. A particularly nice one came from a cross from Abi from deep in the 18 yard box which Kelly took first time and drove to the right hand side of the keeper and into the back of the net.

Ailish nearly scored from a 25-yard strike, but the keeper just managed to paw it away and off the goal line.

Finley was solid in defence, winning the ball back and got our keeper Alyssa involved in some passes to play out from the back in the second half. Alyssa wasn't completely quiet in goals and was forced to make a flurry of good saves from Mirboo efforts.

Coco in defence with her speed and positioning continues to make life very difficult for opposition key-strikers and did so on numerous occasions.

Abi and Kelly piled on more goals for the Island.

Mirboo refused to give up and eventually scored a well-deserved goal for themselves.

Great sportsmanship was on display from both sides which helped to make it a thoroughly enjoyable match for all players.

Final score: Island won 14-1. Goals: Kelly-5, Abi-5, Pauleen-1, Finley-1, own-goals-2.