by Elliot Makin
The result from today’s match was not what AFC Unity would have hoped for, as they were defeated 0-11 by Sheffield Wednesday Development.
Unity started well and pressured Wednesday keeping them at arm’s length for the first 10 minutes of the first half. However, goal number one came in the 12th minute from Sheffield Wednesday’s number 7. Unity continued to keep pushing on and try to create chances, but Wednesday weren’t allowing them to get through their defence. In the 14th minute, number 15 for Wednesday was taken off and they only had 10 players for the remainder of the game. Wednesday then continued to push forward and converted 4 more goals before half-time making it 0-5.
After half-time Wednesday continued to attack at Unity’s defence and rack up the score tally making the score-line 0-8 by the 60th minute. Shortly after their 8th goal, number 13 for Wednesday was taken off due to another injury resulting in them only having 9 players on the pitch. There were some brilliant saves from Unity’s keeper, Hannah Lamb, as she tipped over a close range shot from number 7 in the 68th minute and then again in the 72nd minute, keeping the score from worsening. Although Unity didn’t give up and carried on pushing on for the final dying minutes of the second half, Wednesday score 3 more goals in quick succession resulting in the final score AFC Unity 0-11 Sheffield Wednesday Development.
Talking to Unity’s captain, Rachel Rodgers, after the game she said. “We won a lot of personal battles in defence, but they were just the better team and they took their chances when they had them.” Unity’s number 3, Jane Watkinson, spoke about how she felt that, “We had good spells of good passing, but we just need to be more consistent.” Unity’s Manager, Jay Baker, talked about how he was pleased that “we kept on going throughout the game, there were a lot of individual errors from each player, but on a whole we played well as a team.”