Southampton FC Women v Lewes Women
Southampton 0 – 1 Lewes
Goalscorer;- Emily Kraft
Attendance;- 2,319
It was a cold and wet Sunday afternoon when Saints headed back to St Marys to kick start the second half of the season and their first match of 2023. Buoyed from a positive game against WSL side Brighton, Saints confidence was high heading into the match, Marieanne kept faith with the majority of the players recalled upon as well.
Although, It was not the start of 2023 we had all hoped for when league action returned against Lewes. It was clear from the get go that only one team wanted to actually play football and unsurprisingly that team was our girls. With Lewes resorting to what could only be described as poor sportsmanship and dirty tactics. Such tactics that the referee, Stacey Pearson, washappy to indulge. Unfortunately the game didn’t end the way we all wanted and Lewes wenthome with a 1 nil win (to the magic sponge) and all 3 points.
I’m going to start off by saying that the way the Lewes manager was acting during this match
was terrible. Bad language and getting up into the fourth officials face is not okay. A complaint
was put in to a steward by a fan sat near us and they dealt with it well. The fourth official spoke to him but everyone believes he should have been warned and spoken to by the ref. It’s interesting to know that us supporters can have an influence on the behaviour of the opposition coaches. So thank you to the stewards for taking that fans complaint seriously and acting on it even when the ref chose not to.
First half
The whistle blew and Saints started off on the front foot, we had a massive amount of chances and the majority of the possession but we just couldn’t get that ball into the back of the net. We had a bit of a scare early on in the match when Kayla took a knock to the head resulting in treatment. Luckily Kayla was okay and carried on to play the full 90. In the 37th minute was when Lewes took the lead after winning a corner which met the head of Emily Kraft who put it past Kayla and into the back of the next. Ella Morris had a brilliant chance after receiving a lovely pass from Wilko which was shot from a tight angle and tipped over by the Lewes goalkeeper. The 45th minute come around and Megan Collett picked up an injury to her arm in which she needed to be replaced. We hope you’re okay Meg! Megan Wynne come on in as replacement for Meg.
Megan W came on and impacted the gamealready with a chance from the right that went just wide of the Lewes keepers post keeping it at 1-0 going into half time. That going in could have changed the game and team talk before the second
half started.
Second half
The second half came and a strong performance it was. An early chance came from Alice
Griffiths driving the ball forward before passing to Sophia who did a very cheeky flick onto the path of Katie Wilkinson but the Lewes goalie charged forward to block the shot. Lewes took a tactical approach and took every opportunity they had to drop to floor and stop the run of play, taking their time in doing so. You could see our players getting very frustrated with this. One example is Alice getting fully dragged around in a circle by the Lewes player pulling her shirt, the Lewes player dropped to the floor and received the free kick from an extremely oblivious ref.
The half went on and we were trying to create chances to get that equaliser but it just wasn’t
coming and we was broken down in the final third a lot of the time. Ella Pusey was subbed on
and bought a bit more fire to the game. She tested Whitehouse with a shot from just inside the area but Whitehouse pulled out another great save to stop Saints from getting that equaliser. 9 minutes were added onto the end of the 90 minutes which was probably the tactically frequent ‘injuries’ the Lewes players were pulling.
A last minute chance towards the end of the match saw Saints get a free kick. Lucia stepped up to take it but she just couldn’t keep her shot down to convert it and equalise.
The unbeaten run ends but the Saints march onto next Sunday when they travel all the way to Durham for their first test against them this season.
Alice was in my opinion the Player Of The Match for this game as she was undeniably having a great game. She was making runs, holding her ground and pushing forward as well as taking a good few shots herself. Very closely followed by Megan Wynne who is not was affectionally named by a lot of people as she made instant impact to the game as soon as she stepped on that pitch.
Player of the match
At the end of every match a poll is put on the supporters group which allows the fans to vote for who they thought was player of the match. The majority of the vote is then awarded player of the match for that game.
Voted player of the match for the game against Lewes was none other than Laura Rafferty! This was her first league 90 minutes in a while and she definitely played an amazing game. She was making loads of important challenges and tackles when Lewes were on the attack whilst also making driving runs into the middle of the park. She was also very
vocal and organised the back line well.
Congratulations on ‘Player of the match’ Raff!
Line ups
Southampton FC Lewes FC
1 Kayla Rendell 1 Sophie Whitehouse
2 Ella Morris 2 Ellie Mason
3 Milly Mott 3 Rhian Cleverley [c]
4 Lucia Kendall [c] 4 Amelia Hazard
6 Laura Rafferty 7 Nat Johnson
7 Georgie Freeland 8 Grace Palmer
12 Sophia Pharaoh. 9 Emily Kraft
19 Alice Griffiths 10 Amber-Keegan Stobbs
20 Katie Wilkinson. 11 Emma Thompson
23 Megan Collett. 14 Paula Howells
24 Paige Peake. 18 Rebeccan Mckenna
Substitutions
5 Rosie Parnell 26 Emily Moore
8 Phoebe Williams 15 Jayne Ritter
9 Ella Pusey 16 Zoe Smith
11 Megan Wynne 19 Lauren Heria
36 Beth Howard 20 Libby Copus-Brown
21 Valentine Pursey
22 Josie Longhurst
23 Izzy Dalton
Shannon Stephen
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