Our NI Ladies secured a valuable 3 points in tonights game against a much fancied Norway.
Going into the game as underdogs placed 30th in Europe the NI Ladies knew it would be a tough encounter against a team ranked 2nd in Europe.
However, a superbly taken strike from Kirsty McGuinness after an excellent pass from Sarah McFadden (Big Mac) opened the scoring.
This was folllowed up by a goalmouth scramble resulting in Captain Ashley Hutton getting her head onto the ball past the advancing Norwegian keeper to give NI a 2-0 lead at the end of the first half.
The 2nd half saw the Norwegians push forward and have a lot of the possession and unfortunately one of their shots on goal just brushed off Emma Higgins gloves and into the net. 2-1 game on!
Keen to equalise the Norwegians put a lot of pressure on the NI defence but stalwart defending by all our girls minimised any threat.
A clash of heads between Ashley Hutton and Rachel Furness saw both players requiring treatment with Ashley eventually being allowed to enter the field of the play by the referee.
Rachel needed further treatment but as always came back onto the pitch with a bandage around her head but determined to finish the game.
Within a couple of minutes on re-entering the pitch Rachel latched onto a well weighted pass by Simone Magill into the box and had a good strike on goal which the Norwegian keeper could only parry away.
Lady luck was on our side as the ball fell kindly again to Rachel who didn’t waste any time in slotting it past the keeper. 3-1 to NI.
The girls kept running, passing and defending to the final whistle and Mourneview Park went wild – a great game, great result and let’s hope Alfie Wylie and the entire squad can replicate the performance in Hungary on Wednesday.
(The lady in the picture is Michelle McIlveen, Chair of the DCAL Committee )
