Town net win over Gown
Wednesday night saw the annual Town vs Gown Netball match at Headington Sports Centre. The Blues squad was relatively inexperienced, consisting as it did solely of players who will be competing in the next academic year. The team were also lacking practice, having not played since their Varsity defeat at the end of last term.
This rustiness showed in the first quarter as the Blues fell 7-0 behind to a clearly experienced Town side. However, with centre and new captain Elin Leyshon leading by example and showing incredible court coverage along with President Geri Lynch, who had a superb half at wing attack, the Blues began to gain a foot-hold in the match, which had seemed to be slipping away from their grasp.
The game was fast-paced and competitive as these encounters always are and both sides gave away numerous fouls as they strove to gain the edge.
The match ebbed and flowed in the second quarter as the Blues got to within four points of the Town team at 17-13, only to find themselves 22-13 down when the half-time whistle sounded.
Once in and around the 'D' they were unable to convert their superior possession into points. The frenetic pace of the game forced the referee to call the captains together at the interval to ask them to tell their respective teams to "calm down," although she said afterwards that the frequent fouls were due, "more to aggression than dirty play."
The Blues began the second-half strongly, despite the loss of goalkeeper Caroline Sherington to injury. The scoring was more even and the Blues' fitness began to show as Becky Swarbrick began to impose her influence on the match from centre as Leyshon moved to wing attack and Lynch to goal attack.
Fleur Ashton also had an excellent second-half and showed intelligent defensive play against some superb attackers, managing to stem the flow of scoring opportunities to the rampaging Town side.
However after being nine points behind at the start of the fourth quarter, the Blues could not overcome the deficit and slid to a 35-22 defeat which ultimately reflected the discrepancy in the sides' shooting as Town's GS Julia Collinson proved incredibly effective, scoring from all areas of the 'D'.
The result itself was not really representative of a game in which the Blues dominated possession and captain Leyshon pronounced herself "disappointed" with the final score adding: "we had expected to win."
This is not to detract from the performance of the Town side who played to their strengths and dispalyed almost flawless goal shooting.
There were many positives that the Blues can take from this game: they worked exceptionally well as a team and their movement of the ball from defence to attack was always extremely fast.
If the defence can be tightened up and the shooting made more consistently accurate they will have an exellent platform for success to take on to their summer tour of Barbados and into the BUSA season next term. Next academic year they will look for revenge in the Varsity match in Hilary 2005.
13th May 2004