9 April 2026
League Cup: SEMI-FINAL
- Gizmo previews the Semi-Final
- Other games affecting us
- Jason Stephens' interview
Gizmo's Semi-Final Preview
O's vs Islington Boro
After the Easter break, we are back with a semi-final in the John Greenacre Memorial Trophy (JGMT) against Islington Borough coming north from the home of smashed avocados and matcha lattes. This match was scheduled to be played at the Betwright Stadium, aka, Brisbane Road, which would've been a great experience for the Islington Borough and Orient women. However, the latest news from the GLWFL official website is that it will now be a 2:00pm kick-off at Cheshunt.
Borough have had a difficult season in the league, as most of last year’s team departed to pastures new and the new players have found it tough. They will be relegated from this division with a current goal difference of -50, having only won two matches all season. The JGMT will have come as a relief to them and they have done very well to reach the semi-finals, knocking out the Civil Service tea trolley and South London Laces-Spartans. Their main goalscorer is Andrea Chan with eleven, supported by Romy Fernandez Reumann with six and Rudi Wilmshurst with five. No one else has more than one.
I’m not sure who is back from their holidays but the prospect of playing at the Betwright in a semi-final will have added an extra snap to training this week, plus the possibility of silverware. It was good to see Sammy Rowland back on the sidelines recently. New additions Macie Windsor and Flo Donnelly have settled in very well. We should see new signing American Bria Abbiati make her debut. She is from near Boston, “the home of the bean and the cod”. Pie and mash might be an eye opener for her.
Poppy Binding will be licking her lips in anticipation, having already scored ten against Borough. Grace Gillard, who got a hat-trick against them, and Steph McCaffrey will also be looking forward to the encounter. One of the challenges here is not to let standards drop as there is a tough cup final coming up in two weeks against Hammersmith. I can’t imagine that happening, given the personalities involved. Wiki Fronc, for example, only has one setting – 100%!
In their last match, Orient won a tough match against a dogged Brentford B. This will be a different proposition. As I said, Borough have done well to get here, but there is only one winner. Orient will cruise through, as befits their history, to the final.
Recent results
Leyton Orient 12 Islington Borough 0 (22 February 2026)
Islington Borough 0 Leyton Orient 14 (14 September 2025)
Our normal LIVE-TEXT service will run for this game so, if you can't make it to the ground, we'd be honoured with your company on our live text stream where you can keep up with the game as it unfolds via Larry Peterson's minute-by-minute updates from the touchline. A clickable link to enable to you tune in will be posted on our home page on Saturday.
Sunday's League and Cup fixtures.
Four matches, two GLWFL League Cup games (LC) and two Premier League (PL) matches are scheduled...
| PL | Comets | vs | AFC Croydon |
| PL | S London | vs | Sport Duet |
| LC | Luton Dev | vs | Tooting Bec |
| LC | Orient | vs | Islington |
Comets vs AFC Croydon
Croydon are closing in on Sporting Duet's 4th spot and have four games in hand to make up the two point deficit. Comets are safe unless they lose all their remaining games and AFC Leyton win all theirs. Mathematically possible but there's no real prospect of that happening
Verdict: Croydon to gather the points they need to overhaul Duet.
South London vs Sporting Duet
Third plays fourth although Duet have played three games more and are six points back.
Verdict: The regular South London team have too much for Duet, we expect to see Croydon take advantage.
Luton Dev vs Tooting Bec
The other league cup semi-final sees an intriguing clash between a very strong Bec side facing a young Luton Dev team who have made a lot of progress during the latter stages of the season.
Verdict: Tooting Bec have the habit of doing just enough to come out on top. We predict that will happen again but only by the odd goal. A tight battle in prospect.
Orient vs Islington Borough
See Gizmos words (above).
Jason Stephens says...
Head coach and women's CEO Jason Stephens was given a couple of pages in the O's programme notes for the Huddersfield match. He took the opportunity to follow up on his earlier interview a couple of weeks ago. We've extracted most of it here...
Sammy Rowland plundered 30 goals in her first ten league matches this season, Poppy Binding then took on the mantle of goalscorer-in-chief following injury to the O's striker. Since hitting an eye-watering 42 in 18, Poppy has been moved a bit deeper in an altered Orient side facing down the business end of the season without some key players.
Manager Jason Stephens explains how crucial absences have seen him call on young players and sign others on dual registration to cope with the injury list he and his staff have faced.
"We had a small squad anyway and it was important to bring in good players and not rotate too much. We didn't feel we needed a huge squad to get the upper hand in this league. That was a risk we took, though obviously, you can get injuries anywhere and we've had five big ones - although none of them were actually picked up in matches, they have all either been accidents in training or away from football".
"We lost our striker Sammy Rowland to an MCL (medial collateral ligament) injury during a shooting drill, Emily Dilliway twisted her knee in a warm-up, Ellie Leek left to move up north, Georgia Griffin had a hamstring injury for a while and Wiki Fronc has also had a hamstring problem. She is someone who does ultra marathons and long-distance challenges, 100-mile runs etc. People's work has also been a factor. We're managing it this season but we did get down to the bare bones at one point. We had to bring in youngsters, the academy is a great point to draw back on, having just rebuilt it.
It's too early in the development in some of the young players for us to put them into the first team. So I brought in Maddie Biggs, who has played for Ipswich and Billericay, and Flo Donnelly who has played for me before. Against South London recently, we had two players get sick the night before the match but as a manager, you get used to dealing with things that come up."
Stephens admitted he did get some stick for the fact his team won 3-0 at South London, one of their smaller margins of victory in the Greater London Women's League Premier Division. However, we are closing in on the title and have the final of the Capital Women's Cup - Intermediate to come against Hammersmith at Dorking Wanderers' Meadowbank ground to come on April 26 as we look to make it a hat-trick of silverware in the maiden campaign at the club. Stephens added:
"We had the highest percentage of the ball that we've had in any game this season, I'm not making excuses but we missed two penalties - one was a great save, one a poor penalty - but we had no warm-up and our routine was disrupted. The pitch was hard and bobbly, South London are an organised, defensive side who are difficult to break down and love a physical challenge. But we have another cup final to look forward to now.
Because of our huge goal difference, we need just two wins in the league to get over the line as champions. This is what we play the game for - we all chose to come down to this level and we want to do that decision justice. The teams we face wouldn't want us to play at ten per cent, or 20 per cent. They want to face the best version of us. We want to break records, we want to concede the fewest goals in a league season. We've only let in two league goals and they were both own goals."
The finish line is in sight so make sure you keep an eye on the O's results to see how they fare in the final defining weeks of the campaign.