Sheffield United Women: Black Cats pounce despite calls for off-side to peg back Blades

Sheffield United Women were left ‘frustrated’ with a draw at Sunderland yesterday.

Abbey Joice’s controversial equaliser denied the Blades all three points in a 1-1 draw against the Black cats at Eppleton in the Barclays Women’s Championship.

Joice struck for the hosts – despite suspicions of offside – to cancel out Mia Enderby’s first-half opener and make it four points from two home games.

The Blades’ Charlotte Newsham felt her side were dominant but was left frustrated by refereeing decisions.

“It’s obviously frustrating, I would say we dominated the game for the first half – we were all over them and we deserved to score more than one goal,” said Newsham.

“Second half, they came at us, and it was more of an even game.

“In my opinion, the officials have once again ruined the game – we’ve had a goal there that’s onside, and their goal was three yards offside.

“It’s disappointing, but we’ve got a point which is better than no points.”

Newsham also sang the praises of young United scorer Mia Enderby.

“Mia [Enderby] has the talent, we see it all week in training,” said Newsham.

“She’s a young player, but when she’s on it, you can’t stop her and to be fair, she took her goal well and could’ve had more than one.

“I thought their keeper kept them in it multiple times.

“I thought when we hit the post and had two chances straight after, she was straight on it, and she played really well to be fair.

“It’s just one of those days as we keep saying, but it will start to fall our way soon cause we’re a good enough team.”

After a scrappy first quarter of an hour, the Yorkshire side produced a moment of quality to unlock the home defence on 18 minutes – an incisive through ball from Bex Rayner found Enderby and the 17-year-old showed composure beyond her years to slot past Claudia Moan for the opener.

Enderby tested Moan again after the half-hour mark, chopping in from the right and forcing a save from the keeper at her near post.

Courtney Sweetman-Kirk poked wide from a promising position on the stroke of half time, as United continued to control proceedings.

The visitors were left wondering how they hadn’t scored again nine minutes into the second half, as three chances were missed in quick succession.

First Rayner blasted an excellent strike off the post, then saw her rebound brilliantly saved by Moan, before Enderby was also denied by the keeper to keep the score at one.

The goal scorer was clean through again three minutes later in similar fashion to her earlier goal, but Moan came out to block the effort.

And they were made to pay for their profligacy on 69 minutes – Joice surviving an offside shout to run through and beat Fran Stenson for the equaliser.

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