Scotland U21 Women fall short in final test match against England

Lorna Cruickshank Scotland U21 women

Scotland U21 Women finished their week of hockey against a strong England side in Lilleshall with a 4-2 defeat, but a defeat that showed the strength and determination of the team even in tough conditions.

Building on the game from the previous day the young Scottish side worked hard from the first whistle, hassling the ball carriers and setting up their zone early, preventing many English attacks.

Scotland got off to a great start and took the lead midway through the first quarter. The finish came via an expert penalty corner drag-flick by Emily Dark, which gave the Scots a 1-0 lead.

England battled back and equalised late in the first quarter with an open play goal, despite some valiant goalkeeping by Megan Inch. Inch saved the initial shot, as well as the resulting rebound. Regardless of the brave attempt she was helpless to stop the finish from the second rebound and England levelled the game.

The second quarter began at the same high tempo as the previous encounters; the Scots defended well and denied England opportunities but in attack were a little less composed and gave the ball away on the final, and most important, pass.

After this England began to dominate possession and when Scotland gave away a soft penalty corner, England capitalised scoring with a well-executed deflection option to go into the break with a 2-1 lead.

The Scots came out from the half time team talk with the intention to invite England to try to create play from the back; the Scottish forwards sat off slightly and allowed the English defence to play the ball around the back.

The hard work of the Scottish forwards paid off as England turned the ball over several times but Scotland couldn’t capitalise.

Then England scored a third goal from a penalty corner. It was a cruel blow at an important stage of the match, giving England a healthy lead.

Despite the score line Scotland kept pushing onwards. England struggled to create chances from open play with Scottish defenders intercepting long balls and stealing the ball from English forwards.

The great effort was not enough to stop England scoring their fourth goal from yet another short corner with eight minutes remaining.

Scotland would not go without a fight and some fantastic play down the right from Chloe Hardie, Lorna Cruickshank and Ellie Hutcheson resulted in winning a short corner. Emily Dark was on hand once more to score from a drag flick to make it 4-2.

Having only come in as a last minute replacement the night before the Scotland squad travelled to England, Emily Dark became Scotland’s top scorer with three goals over the three game series.

 

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