Aquas win friendly against Andover Arrows 23-12

Seven doughty Aquas headed out through stormy wind and rain to Andover for a friendly match against the Arrows, who were very welcoming. They had 11 players available, most of whom seemed to tower over our girls but Aquas were unintimidated and quickly showed themselves to be the more experienced side, taking control right from the start. Erin, Emily W and Charlotte fed the ball smoothly through to GS Izzy, whose first four efforts all found the net. Andover fought back bravely, however, and had three goals of their own on the score sheet by the end of the quarter.

A key position change in the second quarter saw Freya swapping with Emily P to move into a mid-court role. With Erin's ability to be everywhere at once, Charlotte's strong shooting and assertive defensive work from Zahra and Emily P in the Andover third, Aqua pulled ahead and finished the quarter 8-4. Jilly was keen to make this a learning experience and today concentrated on footwork, not just avoiding footwork faults, but concentrating on landing on the correct foot for more fluent play. This was obviously going in, as there were markedly fewer faults in the rest of the game.

The third and fourth quarters saw Izzy and Charlotte swap positions, while Freya moved into C and Erin into WD. Jilly encouraged her attacking players to think about how to take centre passes and this led to some smooth set pieces out of the centre circle. Zahra and Emily P, holding firm at the back, linked well with Erin and Emily W and Freya to pass the ball down the court in swift, well-placed passes, while at the attacking end, Charlotte and Izzy worked well together to keep the goals coming: they finished the fourth quarter a dominant 17-6 up.

We still had quarter of an hour of court time left at this point, so decided to add to make the most of the opportunity and add two shorter 'quarters' onto the end. Despite all of them having played continuously as we had no reserves, the girls were still game. Izzy was starting to tire and moved back into GS, while Erin tried out her tight marking skills in GK. Another successful quarter ended 22-8 to Swan.

To keep the girls concentrating on their footwork, for the last quarter Jilly asked Andover umpire Jane to penalise the girls if they landed on the 'wrong' foot when catching the ball, even if they hadn't actually committed a foot fault - harsh, but a good learning experience! This saw them lose possession a few crucial times in the attacking third and led to a resurgence of confidence in Andover, who, while not able to seriously threaten the Swan lead, potted four neat goals to start a promising comeback.

All in all it was an enjoyable experience for our girls, who worked very hard through a solid hour of playing. It's an excellent opportunity for them to learn, so thanks to Jilly for coaching and to Andover for hosting - and the tasty Christmas cookies at the end! Hopefully we will be able to fit in a rematch next term.

Team: Zahra, Emily P, Erin, Emily W, Izzy, Charlotte and Freya

Player of the match: Erin