On Sunday, the Cheltenham Women's team headed to Westonbirt to start the defence of their League and National titles with two matches against Cirencester and rivals Bristol Bombers.

Cheltenham 14 - 5 Cirencester
First up was a fantastic game against local club, Cirencester. Cheltenham were quick to get on the board with a goal easily slotted past the Ciren keeper. Cirencester did their best to stay in the game but a flurry of goals from 4 different goal scorers including Lydia, Shelby and Erin for Cheltenham set the precedent for the rest of the game. Grace found the back of the net, showing that umpiring in between games wasn't going to slow her down and Haz found her inner footballer with a diving goal after a fantastic drive from midfield.
Cirencester were found having to resort to some questionable at times tactics, but the composure of the Cheltenham side shone through; with brick-wall defence and some text-book midfield transitions there was only ever going to be one results - a first win of the season and hopefully the first of many!

Cheltenham 8 - 4 Bristol
A quick snack break and the Women were back on the field to face their old rivals Bristol. Last season saw Cheltenham finally take a win against Bristol and they haven't looked back since!
Bristol were incredibly strong on the draw and found possession frequently won, but Cheltenham kept changing things up and eventually turned this around! The first half was incredibly close with a one goal difference between the teams. Defence was working incredibly hard and shut down a number of opportunities from a strong Bristol Offence. Lead on pitch by Hannah, the communication was kept high and crashes were effective.
The second half was where Cheltenham really showed what they are capable of - the defence kept up the pressure and caused turnovers where possible and the attack made sure to take their time and use the high-pressure Bristol defence to their advantage with Shelby and Lydia taking names and scoring goals with Bristol's lack of slides.

Overall two fantastic games to kickstart the season and hopefully a sign of what is to come!!

Goalscorers vs Cirencester:
Erin - 1
Grace - 1
Rosie - 2
Haz - 2
Shelby - 3
Lydia - 5

vs Bristol:
Molly - 1
Scarlett - 1
Haz - 2
Shelby - 2
Lydia - 2