This fixture was moved to Oxford as Faraday Road was waterlogged due to the heavy rain in Newbury over the previous 48 hours. Newbury chose to play down the hill with the wind in the first half and were rewarded with the first corner. Both teams were pressuring the goals. Emma Paterson in goal made some excellent saves. Morris Motors opened the scoring when a Morris player picked up a loose ball just inside the area and fired a first time shot into the top right hand corner of the net. Newbury continued to attack but were subjected to some bizarre offside decisions. The referee eventually ignored the linesman completely.

After 20 minutes Newbury were awarded a free kick outside the area which Kendall Gilmour took and scored with an excellent shot over the keeper into to top corner of the net. Newbury took real encouragement from this and applied more pressure. They were rewarded by a goal from Caz Harkness who picked up a loose ball and held off extreme pressure from the Morris defence to squeeze the ball into the bottom right hand corner of the net. Chloe Hunt came on as substitute and almost scored immediately running through the defence and shooting just wide.

Morris started the second half well and managed to beat the offside trap which resulted in a goalmouth scramble in which Emma saved their first attempt on goal but was unable to reach the second shot. Newbury continued to attack with Kendall proving a real handful for the Morris defence. She was really unlucky on one attempt breaking through on the left and hitting the right hand post. There was an ugly incident involving the opposition manager and one of the Newbury players following a foul on Kendall, but the referee calmed the situation.

Fifteen minutes from the end Newbury conceded a goal that was very much against the run of play when the ball went loose in the area and a Morris player got to the ball first to put it into the net past the stranded keeper Emma. Newbury could easily have won however with Chloe shooting over the bar and Chelsea Starbuck narrowly missing the left hand post with minutes to go.

Newbury play Holmer Green Ladies at Holmer Green on Sunday 15th February. Kickoff 2 p.m.