St Johnstone Women secured their first points of the season on Sunday with a 5-3 victory over Gartcairn at the MTC Park in Airdrie.
There were a few changes to the side which lost the previous week to Queen’s Park. Emily Burns made her first appearance of the season at left back, while in midfield, Eilidh Begg made her first start for the club. Laura Steedman and Jodie Ovens also made the starting eleven with Hannah Clark, illness, and Ellie May Cowie, injury, dropping out of the match day squad.
Saints started well and were ahead after just four minutes. A move which started with Ellie MacIver in midfield saw a ball played out to Scarlett Brady on the right wing. She played in Jodie Malcolm who squared the ball to Morgan Steedman, who had made her way into the box unmarked to finish.
It was a short-lived lead, with Gartcairn equalising just eight minutes later. A high ball from midfield was passed into the box where Laura Steedman didn’t get as strong a connection as she may have liked on her clearance, and Megan Wands fired into the bottom left-hand corner.
As the half wore on the hosts best chances came from corners and the odd shot from distance which was easily gathered by Ellie Mitchell. The clearest cut chances came at the other end. Morgan Steedman, Jodie Ovens, and Jodie Malcolm all missed gilt-edged chances which the strikers would have felt should have ended up in the net.
Jodie Ovens saw her shot skiff past Gartcairn keeper Katie Andrew’s right-hand post. When Alix Moodie played a curling ball forward, it seemed the only two players thought it worth bothering with were Andrews and Morgan Steedman. As Steedman and Andrews converged on the ball it was Morgan who got there first, but her touch with the outside of her right foot also took it outside of the post with the goal gaping. Jodie Malcolm was played through a short time later, and as she bore down on goal, she was met by the onrushing Andrews who was quicker off her line this time to make the save.
Ten minutes into the second half and Saints were ahead. Laura Steedman sent a ball forward from defence and doing well to stay inline with the Gartcairn defence, Eilidh Begg ran on and crossed in from the right to Morgan Steedman who made no mistake from six yards out.
Just nine minutes later Saints extended their lead. Scarlett Brady played a delightful ball for Jodie Malcolm who drove forward and saw a powerful strike come off the junction of post and cross bar. The ball sailed high and diagonally back where, at the edge of the penalty area, Morgan Steedman with a rather unorthodox finish, hooked her right leg as the ball was going past her, and managed to direct it into the empty net for her hat-trick.
Into the last ten minutes of the match and Gartcairn pulled a goal back. Kirsty O’Brien beat both the Saints rearguard and oncoming goalkeeper Ellie Mitchell to a through ball, taking it to the left of Mitchell and slotting home.
With a break in the action following the goal for treatment to Morgan Steedman, replaced for her debut by Fallon Burke, fears and hopes of an equaliser may have began to form in the minds of the players. Within a minute of Fern Newbigging restarting the match, Saints fears disappeared, and Gartcairn hopes were dashed as Steffi Simson, played in by Eilidh Begg, netted Saints fourth.
The 85th minute saw Saints score a fifth. Once again it was a long ball from Laura Steedman, which Fern Newbigging did exceptionally well to chase down and cross back into the box just as it looked as if it was to cross the byline. As her pace took her several yards off the back of the pitch, Fern looked back as Ellie MacIver, from a similar distance from goal, side footed the ball home with her left foot to score her first goal for the club.
The scoring wasn’t done yet however, as Kirsty O’Brien, set up by Mhairi Hawksworth, scored her second goal with just a few minutes of the match remaining.
Saints next match is in the SkySports Cup as they welcome Livingston to Riverside next Sunday for a 1pm kick off – the first of two back-to-back home matches against the West Lothian side.
Saints: Mitchell, MacIver, Burns (McCafferty), M.Steedman (Burke), Moodie, Brady, Begg, Malcolm (Newbigging), L.Steedman, Ovens (Simson), Robertson. Subs not used: Irvine, Paterson, Cochran
Gartcairn: Katie Andews, Madilyn Wilson, Myia Arbuckle, Samantha Davies, Kayleigh Mitchell, Jennie Dougla, Rachel Howie, Mischa Renni, Megan Wands, Abby Skelton, Chloe McCance.
Subs: Jasmin McPhie, Taylor Hogg, Mhairi Hawksworth, Kirsty O’Brien, Eva Gray, Caitlin Moran
Goals:
Gartcairn: Wands 12’, O’Brien 79’, 88’. Saints: M.Steedman 4’, 55’, 79’, Simson 81’, MacIver, 88
Match Report by Stuart Cowper