Dartford Women 3-1 Millwall Lionesses
By Jeff Burnige at Princes Park
It was another frustrating day for the Lionesses last weekend as they lost 3-1 to Dartford after extra-time in the L&SERWFL League Cup last-sixteen game at Princes Park.
This was a repeat of their fate in the same competition last season, when the Darts went on to lift the trophy.
Manager Jack Wheeler made five changes to the starting line-up, including a debut in goal for Hope Smith, and a return for the legend Emma Whitter up front.
The game started well for Millwall, and Otesha Charles opened the scoring with a brilliant 30-yarder on 25 minutes.
But they switched off and one minute later former Lioness Shauni Griffiths was given too much space on the right and she finished well to make it 1-1. She played well throughout and threatened to put the Darts ahead on two occasions.
The game was very physical as it generally is between these two sides, and midway through the second half Wheeler brought on Shannan Drewe and the experienced Chloe Burr, and this turned the tide. Drewe hit the bar with a left-foot drive, and then in the very last minute young striker Angel Reid burst through one-on-one, but her effort went inches past the post.
This looked like being another close game between these two local rivals, but in the first two minutes of extra-time the Lionesses made two defensive errors in their own box, both of which were punished by Dartford striker Paris Smith.
Millwall tried hard to retrieve the situation, but Dartford expertly managed the game and frustrated them throughout extra-time.
The referee took a dim view of this frustration being expressed verbally, and twice stopped the game in the dying minutes, once to sin-bin a Millwall player, and then in the last minute to red-card another after a verbal exchange with a Dartford player. The two naïve young players concerned will have learned a valuable lesson, but finishing the tie with nine players was a bizarre end to Millwall’s day.