Brighouse Town Devs 0 Harrogate Town 4

Preseason ends with a bang!

Town Ladies’ last pre-season friendly saw a trip to Brighouse to reacquaint themselves with a natural grass pitch, and the match day squad saw the introduction of 16-year-old Holly Mitchell and the return of Kirsty MacGregor.
 
The weather was overcast, the grass a little long, but Town Ladies were quick out of the traps, Rosie Gill latching on to an accurate through ball from the irrepressible Beth Davies and shooting coolly under the Brighouse keeper and into the back of the net.
 
It was end to end for the next ten minutes with both sides creating openings, before Town added a second. A long throw in from the right, Emily Crispin leapt like a salmon to head onto the waiting Sophie Tinson, who turned on a sixpence, and drove with power into the net - a well worked move and a great finish.
 
Town now had a period of sustained pressure, though Kelly Jackson-Powell was called upon to make one outstanding save, tipping the ball “Banks like” round the post for a corner.
 
There was no stopping Town however and Tinson, in outstanding pre-season form, ran onto another defence splitting pass from Crispin, rounded the keeper and crashed the ball into the net.
 
The second half saw the introduction of Beth Clayton, Grace Adams, MacGregor and the youngster Mitchell.
 
Town were now playing with bags of confidence, Clayton and Davies bossing the midfield and MacGregor and Adams heavily involved in a number of promising moves. One such move led to a rather bizarre moment in the game where the referee awarded a free kick on the edge of the area then, after consulting VAR, changed his decision to a penalty.
 
Needless to say, Tinson was straight up to take responsibility, smashing the ball into the top corner to record another hat-trick.
 
So as we head towards the serious season start, what have we learned about Town Ladies?
 
Pace - they have pace to burn on both wings, Gill and Hollie Smith will cause every defence problems this season; expect to see lots of diagonal balls over the top to either wing.
 
Energy - injured Grace Foyer will be a miss, but Clayton and Davies already look like an outstanding partnership in midfield.
 
Sophie Tinson - she is on FIRE!!!!🔥🔥
 
Defence - ever present Rachel MacDonald has her back four well organised and Jackson-Powell has picked up where she left off last season.
 
Free kicks - DON’T under any circumstances give away silly free kicks within 30 yards of goal and make the most of similar free kicks at the other end.
 
New Laws - no DISSENT!
 
Team: Kelly Jackson-Powell, Elisha James, Rachel MacDonald, Holly Smith, Rebecca Hale, Beth Davies, Emily Crispin, Rosie Gill, Rebecca Kendall, Sophie Tinson, Rebecca Wilson, Beth Clayton, Grace Adams, Kirsty MacGregor, Holly Mitchell.

By Ged Maloney