Steve O’Hara’s County Ladies faced their final home game of an impressive league season at the weekend, as they took on 3rd place Barnsley at Stockport Sports Village. Find out how they got on in our latest weekly update.
Unfortunate own-goa consigns County to defeat:
On Sunday County hosted third in the table Barnsley Women, who started the day just a point ahead of us in the league, albeit having played three fewer games.
An even start saw County and Barnsley battling hard to get the upper hand. The majority of chances went to the away side, a handful of long-range shots which were all well saved by County’s Faye Bowness.
Barnsley took the lead on 28 minutes through an unlucky slip in the County defence. A chipped in ball rebounded off Fran Davies as she lost her footing and trickled into County’s net. Bowness had been the busier of the two ‘keepers but no shots had really troubled her up to that point. The away team continued to enjoy the majority of possession in the remainder of the first half but with neither team having any clear chances.
County started the second half more positively, and on 52 minutes a thirty-yard effort from Captain, Kenedy Owen rattled the crossbar – the closest County had come.
Steve O’Hara brought on Rachel Davison up front and, soon afterwards, Rachel Unsworth in a central role. They continued to pile on the pressure, looking for the equaliser, but to no avail.
In a final attempt to break down the Barnsley defence, Chloe Howard took up a new role as striker, and the impressive 16-year-old, Sofia Whitehurst, replaced Lily Weston at left back for her second first-team outing.
At the whistle it finished 1-0 to Barnsley, an unfortunate way to finish the final home game of the season – the only goal in the game coming via an unfortunate deflection.
Following the match Steve O’Hara was disappointed, but philosophical:-
“Not at our best today after the efforts from Wednesday night, we just couldn’t get going. I felt we had the majority of possession, but we never really looked like we had the energy to trouble Barnsley.
We will look to bounce back now against York next week. We are still in a fantastic position, and everyone should be proud of their efforts so far. One below par game won’t define our season – that’s the first time since 31st August we have failed to score in the league and since 30th October in all competitions, which is a great record”.
Two away games against York and, league leaders, Durham Cestria come next, before we face Crewe Alexandra Women FC in the semi-final of the Cheshire County Cup; date TBC.
Thanks to Harvey Wall for helping with this weeks match report.
