Newbury started the stronger of the two sides, when they forged the game’s first chance inside 6 minutes. Caroline Harkness crossing well from the left, for Ruby Oliver to send a back post header crashing against the Woodley cross bar. Chloe Hunt, restored to the Newbury goal, was called into action in the tenth minute, saving well from home striker, Lou Williamson’s shot.

The gusty cross wind was proving difficult for both sides as the first half wore on, with the conditions not suited to neat or slick football. Newbury began to take more control of the midfield area after 20 minutes, when Captain, Caroline Harkness, was moved into a more defensive role alongside, Nuria Bel. Nicole Beesley was then introduced in attack for the visitors from Newbury.

Further half chances were created by Newbury’s forwards, but nothing much to trouble the stand-in goalkeeper for Woodley. Then one of the game’s big moments came just prior to half time, when former Newbury player, Rachel Panting, burst through from midfield for her new club and she looked be through and past the Newbury defence. However, Nuria Bel had attempted to track her from midfield and it looked as if she would get a tackle in, but then Panting’s turn of pace was about to take her clear for a one-on-one opportunity. Only for Bel to pull at Panting’s shirt from behind. The Referee rightly blew for the foul and the Newbury bench held their breath as to the colour of card to be produced. It was only a yellow and it was a lucky escape for both Bel and Newbury. Panting herself stepped up to take the central free kick from the edge of the area, but her effort was calmly saved by Hunt in the Newbury goal, who did well to get her body behind the shot. So the score-line remained goal-less at the half time break.

Again, Newbury started the second period strongly, with three early attempts just wide from Beesley, Oliver and Harkness. The break-through came in the 55th minute, when Harkness played a good through ball to forward player, Maria Rodrigues. She collected the pass, skipped past the last defender in the area and then slotted past the keeper to give her side a deserved one nil lead. Just five minutes later, Rodrigues thought she had double the visitor’s advantage, only for her effort to be ruled out by an off side flag.

Newbury were by now well on top and they had certainly adjusted to the poor weather conditions much better than their hosts and were playing the better football. Gemma Burnett came on for Newbury in the 68th minute and her injection of pace up front, certainly caused further problems for Woodley. She was running the Woodley defence ragged and in the latter stages she went on a terrific run down the left hand channel, sending in a deep cross, which was well met by Oliver. The Woodley keeper could only parry the shot behind for a corner. Up stepped Reed to take the set piece for Newbury and her lower, flatter delivery was headed in from close range by Harkness on 85 minutes. It was Newbury’s second goal and it surely looked to have sealed the points for the visitors.

This was underlined when a Woodley defender was harshly shown a straight red card and dismissed in the 89th minute, for a similar shirt pulling incident inflicted by Newbury at the end of the first half, which only produced a yellow card on that occasion. It capped a miserable afternoon for Woodley United and saw Newbury Ladies wrap up all three points in a game, for only the third time this season. Newbury’s captain, Caroline Harkness, was again inspirational, setting up the first goal, scoring the second and taking her tally to 4 goals in her last 3 games.