The dragons were slayed

Like any other sport in Wales when the Welsh come up against the English you only want one outcome, unless your English of course, and that’s for a Welsh win.

Today it was not meant to be 😔

I was up and raring to go knowing what was ahead and thinking of the ways to improve on the defeat against Spain.

I knew the heat would be an issue today with it being hot before our game had even started. I was loaded with plenty of water from the off.

I had my warm up with coach Taj hitting balls at me hard, high and fast. I was pumped!

First quarter seemed to be over before it began, we rattled the English and held them off. Second quarter totally different, they came back onto that pitch wanting it and within 3 minutes they had their first goal, hard hit to my right corner hitting the side board and in. Got up dusted myself off ready for the next attack and shouting at my defence to stay tight and strong. The next two goals came at the 25th and 27th minute.

I could feel myself starting to feel deflated like I was doing something wrong or not making the right calls. With the half time whistle I jogged off the pitch trying to forget that half but still feeling the sting of each goal, words of encouragement from the coaches, captain and team mates I was ready to take on the English for the start of the second half. As were the fans on the sidelines constantly cheering us on.

I made sure I talked to my back line and told them where they needed to be and to get in front of their player. We managed to hold them off until the 44th minute, another goal had been scored.

Whilst watching from the bench for the last quarter I got a totally different perspective of the game, seeing where passes could be made and where the free people were. England had a few short corners and managed to score another 2 goals.

Not the result we wanted and we should’ve scored a few, but lessons were learnt today as they were yesterday and tomorrow we dust ourselves off and get back out on that pitch and do what we do well, play the game, keep the ball, and score some goals!