The team had a good focused warm-up that paid dividends as they went up by a couple of goals in the first few minutes. The new front court combination of Jayne Goldsbrough, Megan Melbourne and Mel Steingass were keeping things steady and looking after the ball as they started to build their relationship on court, and by the end of the first quarter, Club were in the lead by 11-6.

Crystal Palace woke up in the second quarter and despite some tight marking by Lucy McCarthy at WD and some good work in the defensive circle by another new combination, Olivia Emanus & Liz Roche, they started to look ominous they pulled the lead back in.

At the other end, the front court were finding it tough going, and some careless passing and dropped balls, allowed the Palace defence to pick up a lot of interceptions. There were also a lot of 3 seconds calls as the players struggled to get free. It was a bad quarter for Club who only scored 5 goals to Palace’s 14, with the half time score standing at 20-16 to the opposition.

The start of the third quarter saw Bethany Cownden take the WA bib and, with her and Debbie Greenslade working hard in the attacking third, the shooting circle opened up again. This quarter it was Palace who made some errors and Club were able to claw back some of the lead to end the quarter just two goals down at 26-24.

The last quarter went goal for goal for a while before Palace managed to steal a couple of centre passes and their defence put the squeeze on again, forcing another couple of 3 seconds calls. Despite some fantastic defensive work by Olivia, the team made some bad passes at crucial moments that allowed the opposition to take a 5 goal lead which they did not relinquish. The final score was 36-31 to Crystal Palace.

In summary the team played well, with a lot to be positive about, but also lots to be worked on. Although they do not have the chance of a rematch in this league, the team will be looking to improve on this result when they play Crystal Palace 1 in the North West Kent League.