Haslingden Ladies Vs Hindley ladies

Haslingden Ladies welcomed Hindley ladies to Rossendale on a cold and wet weekend.
Hindley came second in the 1st division last season and were promoted along with the winners Haslingden, so this was sure to be a close affair.
The Haslingden team was; Jess Lomax,
Holly Mallabourn, Sian Atkinson, Simi Atkinson, Jess Murphy, Lauren Brierley, Lucy Webbe, Lily Ashworth, Isabella Chadwick, Sophie Evans, Nicole Pusey and Karla Ashworth.

The game kicked off with Haslingden on the attack, the formation of the team was a very aggressive 3-4-3 with every intention of taking the game to Hindley.
Some sweet passing moves saw Haslingden take the lead on 5 minutes when Evans latched onto a Brierley through ball. 1-0 Haslingden.
Then only minutes from the restart Pusey intercepted a Hindley goal kick and fired from 30 yards out, past the keeper to make it 2-0 to Haslingden.
The game was going well for Haslingden who had most of the ball and were pressing Hindley all over the pitch, but Hindley have a couple of players who can terrorise any team and once they started to link up they changed the face of the first half.
Twice they caught Haslingden off guard and played some neat football to send their forward away who reduced the deficit before half time to 2-2.
Haslingden were stunned as most of the game was played in the opposition half, and complacency was surely to blame.
This was addressed during the half time team talk and a plan to stop the balls being fed to the forward was made the priority.
Within minutes of the restart Haslingden we’re back in front thanks to another Evans goal to make it 3-2. Haslingden were playing some very neat football and controlling things in the midfield, but were very aware of Hindley on the break. Another corner for Haslingden was fired in by Ashworth, and first to react was Webbe who rifled the ball into the back of the net. 4-2.
Then Evans completed her hat trick on 70 mins with a fantastic solo effort. 5-2
Hindley found a second wind and pressed to try and reduce the deficit, but Mallabourn Atkinson and Murphy coped with everything that got through to the Haslingden defence, and if they did get through Lomax was on hand in goal to clear up.
Haslingden’s 6th and final goal came from some delightful play down the wing from Chadwick who laid the ball off to Atkinson, she then feint a shot to create some space and laid off to Webbe who looped a ball towards goal and past the Hindley keeper.
6-2 final score.

Haslingden have played nothing but cup games since September, being knocked out at the quarter final stage of the Mercure cup by a team leagues above, and reaching the final of the league cup by beating 3 teams from the division above.
So it was very nice to finally get into the league games and get some points on the board.
Well done ladies, you were fantastic yet again. ??????