Luton Town Ladies 1st XI v West Herts 3rd XI

Saturday 11th November and Luton Town Ladies made the short hop down the M1 for an abnormally early 10.30am push back against opposition West Herts. The warm up went well for the visitors, they actually had balls this week, which is always an added bonus when playing hockey and should have helped them be prepared, concentrating and in form from the start - it didn't! To be fair it would just have been rude and quite unfair on West Herts if Luton had not afforded the opposition with the now customary 2 to 3 goal headstart. Being the obliging bunch that they are malevolence was not a consideration and thus found themselves three nil down at the break, despite the fact that they had occupied the oppositions defensive half for the majority of the first period.

I would like to say that the West Herts goals had resulted from outstanding, flowing passages of play from the home side, that the visitors could simply applaud and appreciate - but I would be lying, ‘dodgy’ is undoubtedly the term that would portray them with a far higher degree of accuracy. Captain Charlotte Dunham had to be warned about her constant stick tackles not being “good enough at this level” the umpire clearly overrating the player’s ability, the infringements being caused by a lack of skill and timing rather than deliberate misconduct as they were. It was not long after this that Clare ‘Sharkey’ Shaw tried to further assist West Herts by attempting to reduce Luton to 10 men by deliberately scything down their forward who had clearly beaten her and was away down the left wing. Players from both sides were left to wonder how the veteran defender remained on the pitch after such an obviously calculated infringement.

So heading into the second half Luton found themselves in what has become all too familiar territory, knowing that without a doubt the potential was there to make a comeback, but that the challenge would be to get all the moving parts working together to make the machine function effectively.

Luton started the second half much more positively, creating plenty of goal scoring opportunities. The best of these came when Rochelle Lewsey skilfully deflected an Emma Whitehall strike up into the roof of the goal. Luton had already started their celebrations and were on the way back for the restart when they realised the ball had actually hit the underside of the crossbar and somehow ricocheted back out of the goal to be cleared by the defence. This seemed to spur Luton on with Beth Carlisle and Rachel Shadbolt continuing to pressurise the opposition circle, whilst Kerri Stinton worked hard and supported well. At the other end of the pitch the defence showed determination not to let the deficit increase, putting in some strong, well timed tackles that managed to keep the opposition at bay. Janet Gray, who had an excellent game overall, made some really crucial blocks that kept the visitors in the game.

Ultimately Luton would need to wait until the last five minutes to make the breakthrough that they so deserved. This time Charlotte Dunham actually managed to make contact with the ball, rather than the opposition player’s stick, with an impressive top of the circle strike that was deflected past the W.Herts keeper by one of her own defenders.

In the end though it was a case of too little too late and despite winning the second half, where they actually played some decent hockey, Luton found themselves yet again at the wrong end of a 3-1 score line.