This week we faced second in table Upminster 2s on another extremely cold day.

It was a very physical game, with bodily barges aplenty. Luckily Neil and Julie were quick to blow up these infringements (otherwise I'm not sure I would have completed the game in one piece!)

An embarrassing case of "captain's frozen fingers" within the first 5 minutes led to an early goal from Upminster. (Not sure how I missed out on winning the DoD.) Jolted into action from then on, we put up a solid fight, but the flow of the game was often interrupted by obstructions and stick tackles.

Upminster are certainly a strong team, but not necessarily the best at putting goals away. The battle was predominantly in our half of the pitch so we did well to keep the score to 2 - 0 by half time.

I think we played a better game in the second half, conceding only 1 more goal, but we remained under heavy pressure. Aurora managed to get some strong "bouncing sweeps" through to the front line but we didn't have many chances in the D.

Despite the cold and the fierce tackles there were still some good (and certainly brave) performances from our team. Another wide spread of MoM votes but Tucker came out on top this week for her dogged defending.

Runner up for DoD was Molly (much to Sam's delight) for abandoning her face mask, but the clear winner was Aurora, who, towards the end of the game, decided it was time to start giving as much as she got in the physicality stakes. Unfortunately, this was directly after Julie had stopped the game and spoken to both teams about the bad tackles, so resulted in a career first green card.

Lou's post match spicy curry helped to warm us up in the freezing conditions and Sam's apple pies were much appreciated. At least we had kept the goal difference down to a small number and didn't lose too much blood!

Thanks again master Alex for timing our rotations.

Jane