lofcwomen.com

Mon 7th Oct 2024

It was something of a disappointing weekend for Leyton Orient, for both the men and the women!
The women's first team played their second league match of the season on Sunday - which ended much like the first - A defeat and no goals scored.
The opponents were Hammersmith FC who arrived with a fearsome reputation as the team to beat in the Greater London Women's Premiership - and they certainly lived up to their reputation. The Orient ladies put up a spiritied fight but found there to be little in the way of weaknesses in the west Londoner's team. All their players showed good ability, athleticism and fitness, the team collectively was very well organised.
Two high quality first half goals were a testament to Hammersmith's arsenal of skills, our ladies did make a few chances but none could be described "should've scored".
Our match reporter, Larry Peterson, described the visitors as the best side he'd seen since we started reporting on matches a few years ago. However, he gives a special mention to Layla May Duffield as the lofcwomen.com "O's player of the match" for her sterling defensive work including some timely and key interventions.
Our best wishes to Delainy Savill who had been doing a good job in goal but suffered a nasty injury when she got hit hard by an on-rushing forward, she was unable to continue. This gave a chance for Jessica Balbi (who we didn't know was a goal keeper - Oh well!) who came on and stood up well against some good attacking play from the visitors, indeed, she kept a clean sheet during her stint. Also our best to Stephanie McCaffrey who went off injured just before half time and was later seen 'sporting' bandages.
This was a very hard-fought match and, as is usual in the GLWFL Premiership, required a level of courage and strength to compete. Yellow cards for Layla May Duffield and Liliana Almeida reflected the determination shown by the players. It was not a place for the faint hearted. Among the absentees were Leanne Bates, Hannah Stone, Tayla Gencarelli, Sion Kamiende and Thara Said - all first teamers, that probably didn't help the cause. We don't know why they were not around, the club chooses not to share such information.
Nine straight victories in pre-season led us all to believe the team were in with a good chance of silverware this season but none of those sides were from the Greater London Premier League - and there's the rub. As we'd feared during the season build-up, the Greater London Premier is far too good to be playing at Tier Seven of the women's game. Getting promoted out of it is going to be a mountain to climb. Orient's victories over tier six teams over the past couple of years is evidence for that view, almost none were a match for this Hammersmith side nor for last Sunday's opponents Camden Town.
If you'd like to view a blow-by-blow account of the game, recorded as it happened, our live text service still has all the entries we made as the game progressed. You can view it at LOFCwomen/LIVE
If you prefer, Paul and Steve at the Orient-Outlook-Podcast gave an audio update of the women's weekend in their latest broadcast, episode 366. Here's a link to take you directly to their Womens Update spot.

Our under 18 girls played away at West Ham in the Junior Premier League (JPL) but had a torrid time of it by going down 7:2. Sadly they couldn't emulate the famous victory scored by the Under 16 girls who took three points from West Ham recently.
So... all hail the under 16 girls!
They met perennial title contenders Hutton Ladies FC at our home pitch at Loughton and fought out a tough 2:2 draw to keep themselves at the top of the JPL Warriors league table (National group 13). That's why it's the under 16s who get top billing this week. Our reporter at the match writes...
"Orient, as a new team, are now beginning to click. The players are understanding each others games more, they are moving the ball quicker and passing patterns are emerging. This was the best performance so far. They went 1-0 down quite early on but fought back to lead 2-1 at the half time break. They were on top for most of the match but Hutton equalised with a screamer."

Things are taking shape in the league now with Islington Boro, Camden Town and Hammersmith all unbeaten and jostling for position at the top. Us and CandI Utd are bottom with zero points. Headstone Manor are still shown on the official league table but they have been removed from the fixtures list so it looks like there'll be no phoenix style resurrection there, sadly.
All the stats, results, tables and fixtures are available right here on lofcwomen.com. You can view these (and other stuff) by clicking the three parallel lines icon at the top right of this page. If you prefer, here are links to individual stats pages for the Senior team - under 18s side and this weeks' heroes, the under 16s squad.

A big thank you to our contributors, we truly welcome your input! If you have any comments related to the women's teams, we'd be very happy to hear from you. You can reach out via email, 'X', Instagram, or WhatsApp at +0385913080531. All the links are available on our home page.
We look forward to your views.