Ladies 1s went into their last preseason friendly against Solihull Blossomfield wanting to improve on last week's performance. The goal was to bring more intensity and keep working until the end. While it was a better start compared to last week, it wasn't quite the level that was seen in Thursday's training session. A mixture of new and returning faces also meant that it took some time for Harborne to settle down and find each other with their passing. Solihull started the brighter team but within 5 minutes Harborne woke up and got into the game. It was a pretty even and end to end contest with both teams having chances but being unable to capitalise. The deadlock was finally broken with a move on the right which involved Sarah Williams running around the back and sending the ball across the face of the goal. Good work from Tracy Rauch then saw Lily Anderson with an excellent final touch. Solihull responded well and could easily have equalised had it not been for some last ditch defending and some very good saves from Josie Morris. It was probably good that coach Joey Turnbull was not there to witness some of Harborne's clumbsey tackling which culminated in two green cards towards the end of the first half. Despite going down to 9 players, Harborne stayed solid and finished the half with a slim 1-0 lead. The second half saw Harborne grow even more into the game which resulted linking together some lovely passes. They had much more of the possession and became the more attacking threat, creating a number of penalty corners. They finally converted one which was put in by debutant Ellie Godwin who followed up well after injecting. As the game continued Solihull seemed to tire and were unable to match the intensity and work rate Harborne brought to the game. A well deserved third goal was the result of a lovely team move which started with a sideline ball on the right and saw the ball transferred around the back before being sent it up the left side and ended with Cerys Bate slotting in on her reverse. The final score was 3-0 but it could have been much closer had Josie Morris not pulled off a number of impressive saves. Overall a very good performance that the team can be proud of. Let's just not mention the tackling...