Essex led at half time in their fixture away to Capital Nuns today but ultimately squandered the opportunity to gain victory.
There are times when you are beaten by the better side. On other occasions you are the better side but fail to push home your advantage. This was one of them. When the final whistle went it was difficult to work out how Essex had lost this game by a 6 goal margin. The fact that they did was down to a poor 3rd quarter performance.
Essex missing key players started well. In the first quarter Essex held their own with Emma Thorogood, Sarah Biss and Rebecca Wilks creating good chances for Rochelle Reynolds-Blanche and Leah Hayzelden to score sufficient goals to keep Essex in the game. In defence Jasmin Odeogberin and Renee Hurley made some excellent interceptions. With the game swinging one way and then the other Essex found themselves taking a narrow 13-12 lead into the second quarter. In the second quarter Essex pushed home their advantage to take a 17-13 lead early on. Capital Nuns fought back and scored 3 goals without response to reduce the deficit to a single goal.
Essex took the initiative for a period around the middle of the quarter and at one stage held a 5 goal lead, being 26-21 in front. Some sloppy play at the very end of the quarter meant that Essex had their lead cut to 3 at half time with the score at 27-24.
Early in what was to be a disastrous quarter for Essex, they were rocked by a 2 minute suspension for Renee Hurley for dangerous play, when the collision seemed to be entirely accidental. This allowed Capital Nuns to pull the scores level at 30 all. There followed a crucial period which to all intents and purposes cost Essex the match. Poor passing and a failure to take chances saw Essex manage only 2 goals whereby Capital Nuns scored 8 Essex fought back and reduced the deficit to 3 going into the final quarter.
At the start of the final quarter Essex lost their composure and made a series of unforced errors which ended any hopes of a victory,
Essex continued to fight hard but unfortunately it was too late and the damage had been done in a disappointing third quarter.
Odeogberin, Hurley, Thorogood, Biss, R Wilks, Reynolds-Blance, Hayzelden, Seton, Mead and Edwards.