Reserves unlucky to lose historic opener

27 / 04 / 2016

Ladies Reserve team lose their first ever national league game to last year's runners up

RUFC Ladies reserve team played their historic first national league game on Saturday, April 16, and were unfortunate to walk away with a 0-1 defeat.
John Whitmore's girls went into this match fearful of a heavy defeat and started nervously, going down to a weak goal when they failed to clear their lines early on. But instead of their collective heads dropping, this seemed to spur the ladies on as they began to create some significant chances, the best of these falling to Dasha Levikina, who forced two good saves from the visiting keeper, the second from a one-on-one.
United continued to boss the game in the second half with the introduction of Linda Kazlauska, who turned the Daugavpils defence inside out on a couple of occasions, and also brought a decent save from the opposite number one. Meanwhile, at the other end, Jana Lindenthal made a very impressive league debut for United between the sticks, with a couple of excellent saves, meaning this game was still a contest until the final moments. 
Late on, it was all Riga United but the straight red card for Justīne Dakstiņa in the last 15 minutes inevitably took some of the momentum away from the hosts as they played with a woman down. Dakstiņa had not been on the pitch long when she appeared to kick a Daugavpils player in retaliation for a shove in the stomach some moments earlier. 
In the end, Whitmore was left ruing United's poor start to this match and those missed chances. But truthfully, Riga deserved something from this match, played in front of a very healthy women's second league crowd of 55 spectators.