Abbey A faced a tough Park A side last Saturday in Swindon & District Netball Division 1. Both teams settled quickly into the game but Abbey’s defence of Susie Lidbury and Helen McGrath struggled to contain a strong Park attack.

Abbey fought hard however and managed to squeeze into a slight lead before half time. After a few changes at half time and words of guidance from coach, Lorraine Bulpitt, Abbey took to the court in the third and played some much better netball, also forcing more mistakes from the determined Park side. Abbey continued to fight and with excellent play from Julie Hewitt and Chrissie Lewis, took the win 45-37.

This Saturday saw Abbey Meads B's take on Lawn B's in their second fixture since being promoted to division 1 of the Swindon league. Abbey Meads took a while to get into the game but fought back towards the end of the first quarter with strong shooting from player of the match Sam Thompson and Billi Skinner who made her B team and Division 1 debut. Abbey Meads entered the 2nd quarter 3 goals down and worked hard to claw back at Lawn with several vital interceptions from Sue Rolf and Lisa Witchell. Strong defending from Dominique Cruickshank and Laura Harris made it hard work for the Lawn attack and half time saw Abbey just 2 goals behind. A nail-biting second half saw player/coach Lorraine Bulpitt take to the court and the two very evenly matched teams battled it out for the lead with solid centre court play from Anna Coleman and Sara Kershaw. The score-line reflected this with the 2 teams being neck and neck all the way to the final whistle. Despite a valiant team effort, unfortunately Abbey Meads got pipped to the post with a final score of 33-31 to Lawn B.

Abbey Meads D vs Raychem D The game started off well , although we were down 8-3 in the first quarter we kept our heads up and battled on . Raychem d had a tough defence but our shoots Jennifer purcell, Emily Wilson and Natalie Cole didn't let this deter them. By the end of the second half it was 13-9 to raychem, Susan Maggs , Amanda Rossiter, Nikki Gillhespy, Nicola Young and Coli Cunningham kept on their tales and put lots of pressure on their attackers, finishing the 3rd quarter 21-19. We came out fighting for the last quarter and defeated raychem with a final score of 23-31 and Coli Cunningham won a much deserved player of the match.

Abbey Meads E v Thames C Heads were high after our win last week, so we all started the game with positive attitudes. The first quarter had a lot of mid court play, with silly mistakes being made, making it quite a low scoring quarter, with Abbey just in the lead at 7-4. The second quarter Thames seemed to have much more ball play than us, and managed to gain another goal by the end of the quarter to make there only 2 goals in it at half time, with Abbey still just in the lead at 15-13. We swapped GS and GK, and two fresh players came on for WD and WA, this helped us a lot in the third quarter as it gave us a burst of energy, great defending by Nicola, Jo, and Katie meant we managed to get the ball back into our attacking area-although not always successfully due to the Thames great defence and and a few wrong balls/movement into the shooting area (which seemed to be a problem throughout the match)! The end of the third quarter we had managed to gain a bigger goal advantage of 22-16. The first 10 minutes of the last quarter were great, with great movement around the court, interceptions and a string of goals to make it a more than 10 goal advantage which we managed to hold on to even though we were tiring in the last 5 minutes. The final score was 33-20 with Tammy Spalding winning player of the match.

Based on information supplied by Jennifer Purcell.