The first County fixture of 2023/24 season and Omega 2 meet a tough competitor in Watford Premier. The Omega squad are newly put together and for the first time in many years, have a squad with subs on the bench!
The game started a little scrappy as the Omega team struggled to gel to move the ball to goal and the well rehearsed Watford Premier team capitalised on this to gain a quick and confident 9 goal lead in the first quarter. Some solid circle defending saw some good turnovers by Mollie Knott and Julie Stanbridge, but the team failed to take advantage of these as the ball was returned to Watford Premier further down the court.
A change to the squad in the 2nd quarter sees Andrea Kinninmonth take the place of Mollie Knott in the GK position and Paige Boughton replace Francesca Weekly at WA. The Omega team settled a little in this quarter resulting in a 6-goal lead increase for their opponents. Again, many turnovers in the defensive circle by both GK Andrea and GD Julie, but again, we did not gain the fruits of our labour and many forced errors proved costly and allowing Watford Premier to again be quick to punish and steal the goal to further increase their lead.
A half time substitution of Mollie and Francesca back on court, with Mollie replacing Julie Stanbridge at GD and Francesca taking the C position from Tara Pryde, who moves to WA, replacing Paige. Omega improved on their goal conversion this quarter, but likewise, so did Watford Premier and their lead grew once more.
The final quarter sees the return of Julie Stanbridge in place of Andrea and Paige in place of Claire Statham. Omega persist with their efforts to gel as a team and continue to give all they have got to close their opponents goal advantage. Two physical contacts from Watford Premier resulted in two injuries to Omega players, the first with a back injury for Tara and within minutes, a winding for Francesca. Swift team position shuffles for the remainder of the game and it continues but Watford Premier are too strong, physical and rehearsed for Omega to close the gap. A great first game effort from the Omega squad, who individually are all strong, but have a lot of learning ahead of them in gelling as a team….but they will get there!
Omega knew this would be a tough game and they were not proven wrong, but we gained the needed point for the table, to start the season. We’ll take that for this first game!