Ryan Foggoa reports: “In a thrilling encounter, Woking edged past Brighton with a hard-fought 3-2 victory, securing a dramatic win in a closely contested match. Both teams battled relentlessly, but Woking’s clinical finishing and resilience helped them walk away with the three points.

First-team debuts were handed to Orla, Renee, Aoife, Izzy F, Sophie and Amy, with Renee making an immediate impact winning a short corner from which we scored. Both teams started strong, Woking were pushing Brighton deep into their own half with aggressive pressing which made us struggle to break out from a 16.

It was then the turn of the short corner teams with Woking going scoring first by a defensive break down. Then Brighton headed down the other end with a very neat routine with Joey deflecting in from a Bara strike. Both sides created further chances, but the defences held firm, and the teams went into halftime with the score tied at 1-1.

Half time was a great time to regroup and talk through the plan for the second half. Woking pressed hard and were on the front foot throughout the start of the second half and the defence of Sophie, Meg, Bella, Hannah H and Abbie with GK Amanda stood strong.

Woking then unfortunately scored two goals back-to-back leaving Brighton to mount a big comeback. Both teams had opportunities to take control of the match. Bara had a chance to close the score down to one with a penalty stroke but missed.

As the match entered its closing stages, Brighton's persistence paid off. A swift counter-attack ended with a short corner and after a two v one with Meg, Bara found the back of the net closing the score to 3-2. However Brighton had no time to respond further.

The team will be disappointed by the missed opportunities but can take heart from their strong performance, with lots of new faces and players missing. We play Epsom next Saturday at Blatch for our opening home game of the season.

PoM: Sophie – Sophie was instrumental in the defence, putting in a commanding performance at both ends of the pitch, driving her team forward with tireless energy. DoD: Ryan – Potty mouth Ryan, always angry with umpires."

BHHC 3s 2
Burgess Hill 1s 1

Alex Smart reports: "In 70 hot minutes, the women’s 3s managed to rack up the same number of points it took eight months to collate last season. Meg was nearly in tears with her first win as Coach for the team.

Following a gruelling pre-season regime, the team felt ready to start the season with a bang – helped along by a new warm up playlist from the “Triple Threat” of Izzy, Izzy and Elise. Finally, my remixes of 80s dance movie classics can go back to my air pods.

Burgess Hill were not going to make life easy for us and despite BHHC dominating play, we were still at 0-0 as half time grew closer. As Shelley headed the ball towards the goal (off the keeper) we were awarded a flick. Jo stepped up and, as she “promised”, nailed the flick with great pace just above the backboard.

Having gone two penalty flicks down in last week’s friendly, it was nice to be on the scoring end of one this week. If only we’d known how frequently the P spots would be used, we’d have brought Knole Park’s watering can to lubricate them.

The defensive line maintained an excellent PCD success rate with Diva, Lizzie, Gemma and Zoe making strong clearances and Abbie reaching anything that came near her. It turns out that Rich’s shuttle runs at fitness are super useful when you’re not defending seven penalty corners in a row and need to get from the D to the halfway line, pronto.

Georgie and Emily nailed their new “scream” positions with well timed front marking to win the ball and redistribute. Juliet was a little nuisance in midfield, winning 99 per cent of the 50/50 balls she fought for. Sorrel was a welcome addition to midfield with great runs and elimination skills. Izzy L didn’t tire in her new forward position and made great connections with Jo and Shelley in the attacking 25.

Early in the second half we were caught with a fast counter attack, leaving a forward unmarked in the D to take an impressive one touch undercut into the roof of the goal. She was either going to score or take Abbie’s head off so we were ok with them equalising to keep her in one piece.

As the temperature rose, the home side continued to dominate but were running out of time to get that crucial goal. We won a second penalty flick but alas, the GK had it covered and the game was still drawn. With a strategic substitution to get all three forwards on the pitch, Shelley took advantage of the space on the right hand side to cut into the D and smash the ball into the far left corner to secure the win just minutes before the final whistle.

Now that we have three points on the board, hopefully we can agree on a “clean” team name.

PoM votes: Shelley, Juliet, Sorrel, Abbie, Georgie. Taking the title with 7 votes – Sorrel.
DoD: Zoe – something about bad jokes.
Fines owed for lateness: Shelley, Gemma, Abbie."

Other results

Hailsham 1s 0 BHHC 2s 0
Horsham 4s 1 BHHC 4s 3
Priory 1s 5 BHHC 6s 3
BHHC 7s 0 East Grinstead 4s 5
BHHC 8s 0 Crowborough 4s 4