Watsonians Ladies 1st XI continued our winning form on Saturday against newly promoted GHK. We started strongly with effective and consistent passing helping to break up the GHK press. The defensive line made up of Emily Newlands, Kirsty Hill, Naomi Graham, Cailin Hart and Anna Cameron were consistent throughout the match in patiently playing the ball between them waiting for a linking pass with the midfield and forwards. We quickly capitalised on this dominance winning a corner where Cailin Hart’s accurate hit found the back of the net after the stick and then head of a GHK defender!

A few minutes later, we made it 2-0 with a well worked team goal resulting in an accurate pass from Mairi Shaw for a diving deflection by Heather Elder that was sent past the keeper’s left foot.

We started the second half strongly again with effective attacks particularly down the left, often by strikers Heather Tait and Nikki Stobie. Midfielders Olivia McMahon, Bethan Mann and Lorna Crawford regularly found themselves with plenty of space to run with the ball and to link effectively with central strikers Daniele Johnston and Eve Pearson. However, the dominance and accuracy of passing that had been shown in the first half was not quite replicated and we did not finish the chances we created.

GHK capitalised on our mistakes earning a corner, an injection to the left slip shot at Lucy Camlin was initially cleared but the GHK attack were first to the rebound and swept it in to make the score 2-1. We composed ourselves and returned to our passing game, an excellent attacking run by Bethan Mann on the right hand side of the pitch led to a third goal being claimed by Lorna Crawford.

The final result stayed at 3-1. A strong performance with room for improvement shows the development of the team in the law few years with much hope of success throughout the rest of the season.

Man of the Match – Cailin Hart