21st November 2019
Bristol And West 0
CTLFC Reserves 5
Goalscorers:
Bristol and West:
CTLFC Reserves: Wadey x2, Griffiths, Galpin, N. Marshall
By Ben Ware
The Development side returned to winning ways at the weekend, hitting 5 against Bristol and West Ladies in their first game of this season’s County Cup. Jess Wadey opened the scoring after a dominant spell for Cheltenham resulted in the midfielder picking the ball up on the edge of the box and smashing home into the top right corner.
She followed this up after some great play saw a peach of a cross met by a header of equal quality to double the Robins lead.
Later on in the first half the home team won themselves a free kick which they played into the box. Molly Ripley caught bravely and unleashed a counter which saw a superb diving header from Sophie Griffiths (pictured) make it 3-0 just ten seconds later.
Half Time: Bristol and West 0-5 CTLFC Reserves
It would be difficult to follow on from such a good half but the visitors did their best, adding two more with Hannah Galpin prodding home in the box and Noamii Marshall finishing off one of many of Cheltenham’s beautiful passing moves.
Some brave goalkeeping you’d often see from the likes of Manuel Neur saw Ripley keep a clean sheet on her return, coming out almost 30 yards to meet and win the ball of an unrushing attacker.
Cheltenham could have made it 6 later on but, after another good move, Caitlin Marron couldn’t keep her shot down and blazed over from 10 yards.
Reaction
“Feels really good, the girls really moved the ball around well on a really nice surface, 4G. What we did really well was that we took all the positives from last week and how quickly we moved the ball. Credit as well to both of our fullbacks who ran on ahead of their wingers are times so we were attacking in numbers which was good to see. It was good for the girls too, to get some goals on the sheet after a couple of weeks without scoring.
“You have to love cup football, it allows the girls to try different things, like we put Caitlin [Marron] at fullback for a little bit today and Anna [Symanowski] in midfield. We allowed Hannah Marshall, Sophie Griffiths, Naomii [Marshall] and Caitlin to play in the number 9 position as well, so it’s come out very well. This is a competition we’d like to go far in, and hopefully we can get a good tie in the next round.
“There were a few standout performances today, with Naomii [Marshall] up front, who held the ball up well and got a few assists and a goal. It was good for Galpin too, she got another goal and Jess [Wadey] lead the line in midfield dictated our game, kept us ticking over and allowed us to play our normal game. Molly [Ripley] has been out injured, which isn’t ideal and we have to give a big mention to Alyta [Norman] who has helped us out for the past month and has done very well. But it’s great to get Molly back in, and we were playing out from her quickly and it’s really benefiting the girls as we look to play good paced football. It was one, two, three, four, five passes and we’re through and penetrating on goal.
“With no game this weekend, it’s about continuing what we’ve done this season in terms of training and the attitudes towards training. I think the main thing is to take the positives every week and we were poor at times today and in the second half coasted our way through the game but there are always spells where we’re on top and dictate the game.”
