Barking & Dagenham 3-0 Hackney
A GOAL AND TWO assists for Parsloes’ Hazel Walker, plus a brace for in-form Roding striker Aysia Matabaro, capped off a composed and accomplished performance for Barking & Dagenham against Hackney in the quarter-finals of the Southern Counties Cup. In-so-doing, the district side reached their fifth successive semi-final in the competition, setting up a home tie against Gloucester for a spot in the showpiece trophy match.
Barking & Dagenham were made to work hard for their win, against a well-structured Hackney defence that was stubborn and obdurate throughout.
For almost the entirety of the game, the majority of play was conducted between the half-way line and the edge of the Hackney box, with the home side pushing and probing for an opening without ever creating anything clear-cut.
Killer Touch
For a while, it looked like Barking & Dagenham’s best chance of forcing a lead would come from Elizabeth Dimitrova’s wicked corner delivery, but as cross after cross was whipped across the face of goal, no-one quite emerged to provide the killer touch.
It was from one-such set-piece that the ball was cleared to Walker for the game’s opening attempt, some twenty minutes into the game. Her left-foot effort from the edge of the box drew a great save from the visiting keeper before Lara Sousa Franco pounced on the follow-up. A last gasp block deflected the attempt wide and Hackney survived.
Seven minutes later, it was a different story. Walker again was buzzing around in the space between defence and attack, sweeping up a loose ball to fire at goal from twenty yards out. Her attempt was due to drift wide of the target but the alert Matabaro seized an opportunity to stretch out a boot, wrong-footing the keeper for a poacher’s finish and a well-deserved lead.
Matabaro was now in the mood for more, powerfully bursting down the right flank before firing one into the side-netting on the stroke of half-time before seeing a similar opportunity saved by the keeper’s feet after the interval.
The same player then tee-ed up Mia Green for a further chance to double the lead then dribbled past two desperate challenges only to see her goal-bound strike saved once more.
Raffle
It took until ten minutes from time before the second came, with a half-cleared corner falling to Walker on the edge of the book. Knowing that if you want to win the raffle, you have to buy a ticket, a well-struck effort from the edge of the area looked to be a comfortable save, but a late slice of dip and swerve saw the shot skip off the surface quicker than expected, somehow squeezing through to double the lead.
Now, as Hackney threw bodies forward to rescue the game, gaps began to appear.
First Matabaro drew yet another save from the visiting keeper; then Erin Taylor’s effort on the follow-up was blocked; and finally Sousa Franco’s endeavour to convert the loose ball fell just wide.
Next, Walker was in the thick of the action again, cruising forward from her deep-lying role to thread a pass into Matabaro in a central position around the edge of the eighteen-yard box. This time, this season’s leading scorer lashed an unstoppable shot into the roof of the net: a goal which lifted her into joint second place in the Barking & Dagenham all-time scorers’ chart.
It was a confident display from the district team, and a first-class response to going out of the National Cup the previous weekend.
Matabaro’s strike finished off a great 2021 for Barking & Dagenham who registered ten wins, a draw, four defeats, fifty-nine goals for and just fourteen against. 2022 sees them in contention for three major honours; on the back of this performance, they have every chance of a thrilling clean sweep.
Barking & Dagenham: Amaya Amaning (Warren), Pearl Brown (Rush Green), Charlotte Bryant (Roding), Elizabeth Dimitrova (James Cambell), Zoe Freeman (Rush Green), Kadie Gibbs (James Cambell), Mia Green (Southwood), Aysia Matabaro (Roding), Chioma Musa-Onyeka (St Peter’s), Lara Sousa Franco (St Peter’s), Erin Taylor (The Leys), Honey Thomas (James Cambell), Hazel Walker (Parsloes)