Saxons took on Cliftonville in mixed summer league at Three Hills Sports park.

Cliftonville applied pressure from the start pressing Saxons high into their 23m zone. The whole team forced to defend including our stalwart Swiss army knife 'Bussy' at centre forward. This was a full on team effort, with Saxons keeper and player of the match Sutton ‘the cat’ demonstrating his agility by parring away a series of on target attempts.

Fifteen minutes of high pressure subsided when Saxons brought some fresh legs on the field and began to stretch the play. With a foray of counter attacks that began to find cracks in the Cliftonville armour. At twenty four minutes, a great team build up resulted in a high paced ball from Waters into the Cliftonville D and a superbly timed deflection from Dyas, the Cliftonville keeper looking helpless as the ball pinged into the top left corner of the goal.

Saxons continued to apply pressure and another build up involving Mezza and Weddle almost resulted in a second scoring opportunity.

A fresh rotation from the Cliftonville bench turned the game again and Saxons under pressure defended well and despite a number of penalty corners Saxons defence of Stevens, Merison, Cornelius and Stuart, marshalled by Sutton held fast.

A welcome half time break and team talk saw Saxons return to the pitch determined to maintain their lead.

A tough second half saw Cliftonville come close to scoring on several sorties into Saxons half. Saxons responded with a number of counters with Weddle first hitting a crisp reverse stick shot over the bar, then coming close again and clearing the bar with an open stick under pressure from an oncoming Cliftonville keeper.

Despite constant defending against the run of play Saxons emerged 1-0 winners with 3 points and a clean sheet. A real testament to the team effort on the day.

Our next game will be 4th July, 8.30pm in Folkestone against Canterbury Mixed. Any women interested in joining the squad please contact Amy Stevens or Caitlin Merison.

A recorded live feed of the Cliftonville game can be found here > https://staydiasports.com/live/1387. Next weeks live feed of the Canterbury game will also be available on the same media..