Andover U16Gs have been trying to get ready for their up coming England Hockey Cup competition by playing a couple of strong opponents. Last week saw them beating Romsey 9-1, who had been beaten by the same margin by Trojans the week before. On paper it therefore was shaping up to be a really good test for the girls.

Buoyed up by the win the previous week the girls rocked up with their nonchalant airs. No point getting stressed as it was just a friendly, but I have learnt the hard way, there was no need to have worried.

Andover started strongly clearly with a point to prove and Liv opened the scoring with a lovely stylish goal, showing a wonderful maturity and confidence, in the 5th minute. Jess quickly followed up with her hallmark goal standing off the left hand post in the 7th minute. With two in the bag the confidence level of the Andover team rocketed and they began to dominate. Trojans defended well and continued to fight back, and they managed to get a ball in the back of the net at a short corner but it was well above the back board so was disallowed.

Play ebbed and flowed with neither side giving too much ground to the other, but both challenging strongly. Tiana took the score to 3-0 in the 14th minute with a beautiful strike that left the keeper with no chance of reacting let alone stopping it. Five minutes later Liv added to her tally followed by number two by Tiana in the 25th minute.

Down but not out, Trojans fought back and managed to secure another short corner in the 32nd minute. Josie made an amazing save that took all the power out of the shot, but it trickled behind her and despite a second attempt to stop it by Gwen it struck the right hand post and crawled over the line. 5-1 at half time was a position we had not expected to be in!

The half time pep talk from the Trojans coach reinstalled the drive and energy in the Trojans and the game became as competitive as we had expected it to be. Trojans looked to be the first to draw blood in the second half pressing hard and really testing the Andover defence, but the girls stood firm and Josie made some solid saves. Andover once more pressed hard trying to achieve Andrew’s challenge of scoring a goal in the first 10 minutes, but narrowly missed with the ball grazing past the outside of the right hand post in the 9th minute.

Andover finally took the tally forward in the 16th minute with a very composed goal from guest star Rosamond, playing up from the U14s for her second game, and having scored 2 goals the previous week. A great performance given she is still only year 8 – one to watch for the future.

Andover turned up the heat and once more started to dominate and Polly, pushing forward from the backs managed to add herself to the score sheet with a solidly struck strike from the edge of the circle that the keeper blinked and missed.

Despite being 7-1 down Trojans fought hard until the end testing the Andover defence time after time, but were expertly rebuffed. T put the icing on the cake with her hattrick in the 27th minute.

Trojans had some amazing players, but the key difference was Andover played as a team, where Trojans played more as individuals. We do not have individuals, every player regardless of their skill works hard for the team and is included as part of that team. It is wonderful to watch them working together, all across the pitch, to deliver a performance befitting a top of the league Div 1 team.

Girls, today you made an old coach very proud. Keep up this level of performance and we could have several more games ahead of us this season in the EH Cup. Well done one and all.