Home:
10.00 M5 v Wakefield 3
11.30 W1 v Wakefield 1
12.00 W3 v Scarborough 1 (Meadowhead)
13.15 Mixed Dev v Hull 5
14.45 M2 v North Shields 1
16.15 M7 v Wakefield 7
18.30 M1 v Belper 1

Away:
10.30 M8 v Rotherham 3
10.30 W4 v Leopold 1
10.30 W5 v Huddersfield 1
12.00 M3 v Wakefield 2
13.15 M6 v Hull 2
13.30 M4 v Leeds Adel 2
14.00 W2 v Ben Rhydding 3

This week I caught up with the very committed women's 3rd team captain, Fran Smith. I asked how the season was going and without stopping for a breath she said, 'Having taken over the reigns from our long standing captain Marni, I was a bit nervous to start with, to try and make sure everything went as smoothly as possible but I needn’t have worried, we’ve had a fantastic start to the season!! We currently sit second in the table with 5 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss and +13 goal difference. The games where we lost points were against the teams currently in 1st and 3rd so we definitely can’t complain!'

Moving on to this weekend I wondered if Fran dreaded a match day. 'I can’t say I ever dread anything about playing as I’ve got a fantastic team around me however, as always, I do dread my team talk – I know we have coach for playing but do we have a coach for these? Haha.
After two away games on the bounce, hopefully we will make Meadowhead as much a fortress as we did Abbeydale as we won’t be at the Dale again until 19th January 2019!!! I’m looking forward to having subs and getting stuck in against a tough Scarborough side who have racked up an impressive 21 goals so far this season but that won’t phase us as we have our two highest goal scorers, Estelle and Naomi, and a very strong defence this week!! Hopefully everyone will remember their kit this time and not have to even think about wearing just their underwear (ahemm... Erica).'

So Fran is a happy captain which is great to hear. She explained the positives of this season. 'We lost a few players to uni last year but thankfully we’ve recruited (or I dragged them along with me) some of the Hallam lot which has definitely added a lot of strength to our side this season. Along with the new faces, some of the juniors have really stepped up this year and had absolute stellar performances so far. For this reason (and that we narrowly missed out on promotion last year) we are expecting to finish in the top 2 to be promoted to Division 2, so we are currently right where we need to be.
As well as the recruitment of players, I’ve been really impressed with our work rate not only in matches have we fought to the end but also at training. Training has been great so far as we are working at a much higher rate/pace than we did previously so credit to Molyneux and all the players who turn up week in week out – this is really starting to translate on the pitch – I’ve had oppositions captains that have been extremely impressed in the way we play and also commended our attitude on the pitch and how we work so hard for each other as a team.'

As you can tell, Fran is a very enthusiastic person who doesn't do anything by halves. I asked for any final comments. 'Not much else to say, apart from that I’m extremely proud of what the team have achieved so far especially with the amount of different players who have played for us so far. It’s been a pleasure up to this point, it definitely makes the 1hr30 drive from Cheshire worth it - some say I’m crazy and I wouldn’t disagree but I’m having great fun in being so and hopefully our success will carry on until the end of the season and make it all worthwhile!'

A big thank you to Fran for her time this week. She is such a valuable member of the club and is doing a great job!

Good luck to all teams this week, try to get down to watch the men's 1s for the evening game, if only for the great music.