Confidence is a funny intangible thing. It can be the difference between two evenly matched teams.

Togetherness and hard work has never been lacking from this Rising Stars team but over recent weeks they have endured “dents” to their confidence and self-belief.

To their credit, coaches Neil and Loz have worked tirelessly to divert the girls’ attention from the results and rather focus on the positives and fix the areas that have led to negative outcomes.

This Sunday saw all this hard work pay off with the visit of local rivals, Herne Bay Youth.

The game started briskly with the momentum very quickly in Risers’ favour and it become apparent to our opposition that they would need to reshape their team in order to deal with the pace of Lexi and Sydney up front.

In midfield Madison, Scarlett, Lorea, Lizzie, Ella M and Nancy all heeded the advice of Neil and took time to pick the right pass. “Calm, Calm” was the instruction from the technical area, and calm they were.

Patrolling the defence were Ella D and Izzy who had the measure of the opponent’s depleted attack - depleted due to the reshuffle to deal with our dominance in the attacking third.

The breakthrough came early in the first half when Lexi latched onto a through ball and slotted home comfortably from 10 yards. The “confidence switch” flipped from low to high and familiar smiles and passages of play returned instantly to our team’s play.

All the team played their hearts out for the entire game and Ella M and Sydney added to the score as the game progressed.

The most notable part of this performance was the game management. The team, even when faced with the onrushing claret opposition, maintained their composure and stuck to the task.

Bethan had another great game in goal helping to ensure we kept a clean sheet.

Both sets of supporters enjoyed the spectacle and this was another example of the progress all players have made over the past two years.

Final score Rising Stars 3-0 Herne Bay Youth

- Carl