The Southern Tablelands Football Association [STFA] under 12 Girls soccer Rep Team has
returned home from Bathurst with mixed results after playing in the Football NSW State run
Country Cup.
They played their first game against Shoalhaven on Saturday. After two draws with
Shoalhaven in the resent Southern Branch Championships, were expecting to be
completive with them, but they came up against a new and very strong Shoalhaven team
and went down 4 nil. They were way below their best in this game.
Their second game of the day was Host Bathurst and the Team started well and looked to
dominate the Hosts but Bathurst beat our defence against the run of play in the 16 th minute
to score a great goal.
Five minutes later the Tablelands side received a penalty and a chance to level the scores.
But the ball rebounded off the Keeper and fell to the kicker, Ava who then put it into the
net and scored what the we all though had evened the score only to see the Referee rule
Avar incorrectly off-side. But to our credit we all accepted the Refs decision and got on with
the game. But following this the Team dropped their heads and midway in the second half
Bathurst scored another goal to put the game out of our reach. Later in the day when asked
by a member of our group about this he just said he thought he may have made a mistake,
fair enough.
Our third game of the day kicked off at 4-15 against Eurobodalla and to their credit the Girls
put the disappointment of the first two games with a strong game by all 13 Players and a
three goal hall by Striker Shae Dumesic gave the Team a 3 nil win.
There is a bit more to this game than meets the eye.
Just before the start of the game and during the Team warn up I was approached be
Sophie Stephenson and Ruby Cunningham with a game plan. They wanted to give Tori our
Goal Keeper a run on the field, little did they know I was thinking the same and who might
go into goals. The Girls plan was for Sophie to go in goals in the first half and Ruby would
go in in the second half.
I though this is a great plan and said OK we will run with it, as I knew that although Sophie
and Ruby are not regulars in goals they would not let us down..
The whole plan worked a treat as the whole Team lifted and played well.
The game was played in freezing conditions and in low light till the Officials finally turned on
the lights.
Sunday morning saw the Team play their 4 th game of the Cup when they took on the strong
Orange Team who were first to score in the 10 th minute of the game.
This brought the STFA Girls to life and they ran out winners 4-1 with goals from Ava
Nicholson 2, Shae Dumesic 1 and Sophie Stephenson 1, scoring her first Rep goal.
Their last game was against the very strong Griffith Team who went through the Cup
Un- defeated and took out the Final against Shoalhaven.
The STFA Girls held Griffith out till the 20 th minute of the first half when a high shot into the
top of the net gave our keeper no chance. Griffith went ahead two nil five minutes into the
second half but the Tablelands gave the top Team of the Cup a fright when they scored
from a free kick 25 mitres out when Ava Nicholson put ball into the top of the net.
Team Coach Lindsay Cosgrove said this game was by far their best of the weekend. They
improved with every game as they played Teams who were strong and as a result made
the STFA Girls to work hard in all their games.
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