SEWFA PRELIMINARY FINAL

CITY TRIUMPH OVER PALACE

City 3 d Palace 2

In one of the closest fought contests between these two perennial achievers, City fought out an exhilarating and entertaining victory over their nemesis Palace in the South East Womens Football Association preliminary final at Blue Lake Sports Park last Saturday.

For one team, this fixture would herald their final hurrah for the season while for the other it presented one final opportunity to engage in battle with Wanderers in next weeks highly anticipated grand final.

Wanderers were the first side to stake their grand final appearance by defeating Palace by two goals to nil a week earlier in the qualifying final.

In a bruising yet honest tussle, the City and Palace preliminary final was perhaps one of the most entertaining fixtures in womens football for some time. City threw the game wide open when they were first on the scoreboard within the first few minutes of play courtesy of a trademark Jen Smith powerful run and lethal finish. Palace had beganwith a tactically changed line-up and this may have contributed to the early dominance of City. Held scoreless in their previous three fixtures, Palace needed to find a goal-scoring formulae if they were to begeniune title contenders. City had not been beaten by Palace in their previous encounters in the home and away meetings for the season and now they were well and truly in the box seat. Palace were able to settle in to their trademark passing game but City enjoyed their equal share of possession and always looked threatening. The scores were levelled when a Palace attacking move ended in a deflected defensive clearance that could only find the back of the City net. But the momentum was still with City as their tenacity in front of theiropponents goal was resumed and ultimately rewarded when Erin Ireland put the finishing and clinical touch on a slick City move. The half time interval gave both coaches an opportunity to implore on their players the sense of urgency, determination and hard work that would be required if they really wanted to play in a grand final. Palace responded well following the half-time huddle and began to play with a sense of genuine purpose and self-belief. Their renewed enthusiasm was rewarded when Eleanor McClintock levelled the scores midway through the second term and a penalty shoot-out loomed as a very real possibility. But with less than a minute to play in regular time, Jamie Van Dyk guided her strike across the face of the Palace goal and inside the far post much to the delight of the City players and supporters. In what ultimately may be remembered as one of the classic encounters between the two sides, City have finally brought to an end an era of dominance by Palace and their four consecutive premierships since 2007. A new chapter in the history of womensfootball in the South East is about to be written.

Goal Scorers: City 3 (J.Smith, E.Ireland, J.Van Dyk), Palace(E.McClintock)

Under 14 Preliminary Final

Palace 5 d Villa

Saturday afternoon saw the preliminary final take place between Palace and Wanderers. In an entertaining first half both teams had several chances to score but both goalkeepers made some impressive saves. Imogen Pratt and Monique Sims fought it out in the midfield with neither player gaining an advantage for their team. Half time brought a major shift in fortunes for the Palace girls with Kate Kourmouzis running on to a superb through ball to ram it home not long after the whistle to start the half. Unfortunately for an under manned Wanderers team this triggered a run of four more unanswered goals. With some terrific finishing from Alesha Hales and Imogen Pratt Palace was always going to be hard to catch in the race to next weeks grand final against Villa. The Wanderers girls can be most proud of a excellent season under first time coach Leonie McCallum.

Goal Scorers: Imogen Pratt 2, Alesha Hales 2,Kate Kourmouzis 1