Haslingden Ladies Vs Penrith

Haslingden Ladies travelled to Penrith to face table toppers Penrith Development. Hoping to follow on from last weeks 7-1 win against Nelson, the girls were in fine shape and in even finer voice. The long trip to Penrith in the minibus must have sounded like we were re-homing a few hundred cats to anyone unlucky enough to be in earshot, as the pre match tunes filled the bus.
The team was slightly depleted with only 1 sub available, which was a big worry when travelling so far.
The game started at a very poor pace with both sides struggling with simple passes, and the pace of the game was not as rapid as we like to normally play. This was down to the unusual dry period making the ground hard and the bounce unpredictable.
Haslingden took the lead against the run of play on 15 mins, when Sophie Evans weaved her way outside the box and crossed for Karla Ashworth to head home. 0-1.
Ten minutes later it was Simi Atkinson who played the diagonal ball to Isabella Chadwick on the wing, she picked out Sophie Evans on the edge of the box and Sophie made no mistake with her finish 0-2.
The game was still very scrappy and could have turned either way, and a few injuries seemed to be appearing for both teams.
Then on the 35 minute Haslingden were awarded a penalty for a foul on Evans.
This was coolly slotted away By Karla Ashworth for her second in as many games to put Haslingden in control.

The first half finished and the team talk was more about injuries and could we carry on, or would we be down to 10 ladies if anyone else came off. The team rallied round, and despite quad, calf and Ankle problems and lots of work from Elle our physio, they battled on.

The second half was a battle of attrition for Haslingden, who seemed to be on the receiving end of some fierce tackles. Nothing illegal, but when your trying to stave off injuries you need to move the ball quicker, only the pitch and the packed midfield didn’t allow for this, and it was taking its toll on the team.
Haslingden contained Penrith in the second half and not much got through the defence. Simi Atkinson even came up with a 4th goal in the second have, despite limping from a quadricep injury. The final score was 0-4 to Haslingden. This now puts Haslingden 4points off the top spot with 4 games in hand on the leaders. Another fantastic effort from the ladies, but at a cost of several injuries to go with the ones we already have. And with a cup final only 3 weeks away we can only keep our fingers crossed that we’ll have a team to compete.
The final act of the day was to move the bus full of cats back to Rossendale. They seemed in even finer singing voice after a few post match beers and after another win to bolster our league position.

Well done Ladies.