09/09/2026
Radcliffe Tigers 1 Vs Prestwich Diamonds 0
The first game back this morning and our first game in the higher division, with one of the teams that joined us in promotion. We’ve played Radcliffe more than any other team and they tend to be incredibly close games.
Like last season, the league has chosen to run the first month of the season as friendlies and so these games don’t count towards the table. It gives us a good chance to try a few things out tactically and with positioning which we did a bit of today.
After a superb show of football at the tournament last week we were very sloppy to start today. Lots of misplaced passes, slow reactions, and a lot of booting the ball in any direction.
We did have a few glimpses of good passing in the first half from the defence in particular. Audrey was superb all game with her calm intelligent passing, as well as her physicality.
Half time talk was to get the ball on the floor and start passing it and we did improve in the second half. We always struggle on Radcliffe’s pitch as it’s very short and the ball just runs away on astro so our pace in attack can’t be used as much as usual.
Although we played the better football and had more chances throughout the game, Radcliffe were more physical and reacted to everything quicker to us. The main positive today was in defence, both their anticipation and physicality to win the ball back, as well as their passing including some great distribution from Nellie.
Eva took a great corner that no one could get on the end of, and we had a few shots that the keeper spilled but again our reactions were too slow to get to the loose ball. Eve had a good game battling on the left and showed a great instinct with her shot.
The last fifteen we tried Alice out in midfield and we thought her linkup play was brilliant, calm and composed and created a few chances for us. We moved our attackers positions a lot today to try some things out before the competitive games start.
With a couple of minutes to go we were unlucky to concede with Radcliffe’s only shot on target of the game which shows how solid we were at the back throughout. It was this goal that seemed to wake the attack up but it was too late with only a few minutes left to go.
Overall not a great performance by the diamonds standard, but it was expected after a few months away from matches. These first four games give us a good chance to get back into our rhythm and try different things out. We were so impressed with the defence today and that’s a great sign going forward.
Girls of the Game:
Iyla - Great game from Iyla at right back. She was physical as always, read the game well, but we were most impressed with her calmness on the ball which is what we have been asking her to do. Superb Iyla!
Teagan - Absolutely superb at centre back once again. Great anticipation, strong clearances, and some brilliant marauding runs up the pitch, taking players on and picking out a pass, but always having the intelligence to get back into position. Well done Teagan!
