Story courtesy of Northern NSW Football
Wallsend 3 (Libby Copus-Brown, Laura Hall, Sass Seaborn) defeated Adamstown 1 (Olivia Trinka) at Adamstown No.1 on Sunday.
Half-time: Wallsend led 2-1.
Wallsend bounced back from a disappointing loss last week to down Adamstown 3-1 in a physical battle at Adamstown No.1 on Sunday.
Multiple yellow cards, one red card and plenty of arm-wrestling, this match had it all.
Adamstown was first on the board after Olivia Trinka scored in the 5th minute but the celebration was short lived as Wallsend answered one minute later with a free kick from Libby Copus-Brown finding the back of the net.
The Devil’s scored again in the 19th minute when a Sass Seaborn strike bounced off the post and found Laura Hall who was able to put it away.
Ten minutes into the second half, Sass Seaborn was at it again and almost scored for the visitors but Buds’ keeper Olivia Sneddon made a spectacular one-handed save and put in a strong performance all game.
Wallsend were down to 10 players in the 75th minute after Jessica Evans was handed a red card for back-chatting the referee but that didn’t stop them with Seaborn sprinting to the goals and striking low into the left corner.
Seaborn was one of the Devil’s best players on the day who constantly made penetrating runs and was difficult to contain. Danielle Nicol and Brooke Summers were outstanding defensively and were able to shut down any attacking play from Adamstown.
Courtney Wiltshire and Jocelyn Rae were standout players in an average Adamstown team with Elodie Dagg performing to her usual high standard.
Adamstown coach Paul Devitis believes Wallsend won the match in the first half with their strong start.
“I have to give Wallsend a lot of credit as they were very good,” Devitis said.
“At halftime, we spoke about being patient and improving our pass quality and that was the difference between us and Wallsend.
“Physically, we were in the battle but they had too much energy. It may have possibly been that we had to play mid-week but we failed to do the simple things.”
Wallsend coach Marc Hingston praised the girls for the courage they showed with only ten players in the back end of the second half.
“Defence was a big focus for us during the week and ensuring that Adamstown had no room to work in,” Hingston said.
“Courage definitely got us over the line but I was really impressed with their enthusiasm and willingness to play for each other.
“I thought we played as good as any team in the competition in the first fifteen minutes of the game and keeping that consistency is definitely something we will be working on.”