Army Head Coach: Essex Defeat 'Frustrating'

The head coach of the Army women’s football team has said he is frustrated after the 1-0 loss to Essex in the Southern Counties Cup.

The team were beaten by Courtney Lumley’s strike and only managed one shot on target during the 90 minutes.

Sergeant Lee Barry has said "it is unfortunate" that his side were defeated with the Inter Services just over a month away.

He said: "We’ve got one and possibly two more friendlies before the Inter Services.

"It’s frustrating. We’d have liked to have won or got something out of the game.

"In the last couple of minutes, we had a couple of chances where we could have possibly pinched a draw."

Sgt Barry has put the loss down to a poor start from his team.

"We were quite slow out of the blocks in the first half," he said.

"We gave them too much respect and were second to every ball

"We weren’t physical. We weren’t the Army.

"That’s what I said to them at half-time. We needed to come out for the second half and up our game. I think we did in the second half.

"They deserved to be 1-0 up and possibly could have been two where they hit the post.

"We didn’t take our half chances when they came to us.”

The Army did suffer from key players being missing and Barry expects that to change for the military showpiece.

He said: "We’ll have a bigger squad for the Inter Services.

"We were close tonight to playing a goalkeeper as an outfield player. We were just so low on numbers due to people on promotion courses and away doing skiing.

"That’s life in the Army."