Ipswich Town survived an early scare as AFC Sudbury took the lead on 2 minutes through Olivia Gunn. Ipswich attacked straight from the kick off and, following a great save from Sydney Batt in the AFC goal and some excellent last ditch defending, the ball found its way to Amy Thompson on the left who beat two players and set up a goal mouth scramble for Gunn to smash home.

However, Ipswich were level soon after and took the lead through a Paige Wakefield goal before further increasing their advantage to make the score 3-1. The scoring in this frantic period wasn't yet complete, as a mistake from Town goalkeeper Danni Clarke resulted in Rebecca Stephenson finding herself clean through on the edge of the box and able to calmly lift the ball over Clarke's head for her second goal of the season. Town then responded in kind again; Amy-Leigh Abrehart smashed the ball into the roof of the AFC net for Town to restore their two-goal cushion.

After a period of relative calm, the scoring continued late into the second half as Ipswich's quality finishing began to tell and the score heading into the break was 7-2 to Town. Grateful for the opportunity to regroup at the break, AFC came out strongly in the second half and produced a battling performance, their resistance only broken late on with a flurry of Town goals meaning the score finished 11-2 to AFC.

A few words from myself: As coaching staff we are very proud of how our girls played today and throughout the previous two competitive games. As a completely new group this season, we have experienced a very tough start with how the cup fixtures have fallen but everyone has stayed together and continued working hard to develop our style of play. We are a very young side dotted with some experienced players and we feel this will serve us very well as we look forward to starting the league season next weekend. Every game so far has been a fantastic learning opportunity for our younger players especially and none more so than today, facing a side of the calibre of Ipswich Town. It was also great to see so many people supporting both sides and the atmosphere was fantastic all day so a big thanks is due to everyone that turned out. We wish ITFC all the best in the next round and look forward to following their progress in the competition and equally to push on with our own focus on the league season, starting on the 29th against East Bergholt.

By Louis Hrebeniak

And another report!

With an injury list that makes Norwiches problems seem inconsequential.

Mallett and Hebreniak had no choice but to field a young team to take on the might of Ipswich town Ladies in the county cup at the Goldstar ground Felixstowe.

What a fantastic occasion for our young academy girls and their team mates.

With a crowd in excess of 200 our girls seemed to take it all in their stride.

Mallett had the best start any manager could hope for.

Our girls were out of the blocks fast and a superbly weighted ball to Amy Thompson see her skin the defender on the left and get to the bye line delivering a brilliant cross that was met with a shot from Paige Clemenson parried only for liv Gunn to fire home from close range 1-0 AFC Sudbury and all in less than 2 minutes.

However the euphoria was short lived as Ipswich stunned by the fast start didn't take long to level you could see they had been wounded and wanted revenge.

Pressing hard Ipswich started to find the gaps and made the girls pay with several goals driving home their dominance and experience at the highest level locally.

Our girls weren't finished though and battled hard to create chances resulting in Rebecca Stephenson finding the space and noticing the keeper of her line took a long range looping shot that finished in the net.

With the young side started to get tired, Ipswich seized the opportunity score 4 goals in short succession to stun the young AFC Sudbury side.

Half time came with Ipswich leading by 7-2

The Second Half was much of the same with experience and physicality from Ipswich proving too hard for our girls to resist. With the pressure ever mounting in the second half Ipswich managed to control the game.

However a quick break away saw amy Thompson get in behind only for the cross bar to deny her a third for Sudbury.

Final Score being 11-2 to Ipswich.

A special mention to Charlie Roach Smith, who literally stepped off a long haul flight early hours of Saturday morning but still found the energy to help guide the less experienced players through what was a massive game for them.

We must bear in mind eight of the girls were playing 9 aside in youth football last season.

By Luke Mallett