Sunderland's second game of the Premier league again saw them travelling south away from home and looking to build on their previous win result.

The sun shone bright from the wake-up call in the morning and was looking to stay the duration of the day. Unfortunately even though it was lovely weather for sun bathing and topping up the summer tans it was not appropriate conditions for Football and this was to be a factor for the day.

The busiest person on the pitch was in fact the officials as a stop-start half did not let any flow to game start and anytime any Sunderland ball was played forward to threaten the Watford Defending third the ball would then be put out to play, but a frustrated Sunderland still looked to push forward.  Watford's first entrance into Sunderland's box saw them create their first and ultimately crucial chance. Lucy Staniforth was deemed to have played player before ball and a penalty was awarded, thus Lizzy Edwards stepped up and calmly put it in the net. 1.0. A neat link up play between Jordan Nobbs and Nicola Devine saw Natalie Gutteridge coming close to evening the score before the break from Devine's cross but the ball went over the bar. The first half ended 1.0

The second half saw a determined Sunderland side to create more chances and ultimately goals, again the play was intermittent through Watford's defending tactics. Runs from Demi Stokes and Jordan Nobbs were thwarted, as they were deemed to be offside and shots from Kelly McDougall and Sophie Halliday were kept outside the box. Steph Bannon and Vicki Greenwell kept Watford attacks controlled and Rachel Laws did well controlling her box. Jordan Nobbs had a goal disallowed as she struck a 25 yard screamer, but the referee had deemed a prior infringement from Abby Holmes before setting the ball back for Nobbs to strike. Watford went 2 goals up through a free kick which was conceived 25 yards out on the left hand side and a back blind side run from Annie Barralt was calmly finished from the set piece. Abby Holmes was replaced by Becky Salicki and Nicola Devine was replaced by Jordan Atkinson. Sunderland were not to accept defeat and kept on looking to create chances, a deserved goal was reclaimed by Sunderland in the later stages of the game from a precise finish from Jordan Nobbs created from a well worked short corner with McDougall and Stokes catching Watford's defence asleep, to then slip the ball to Nobbs to finish around the 18yard box. A fighting spirit was kept amongst the side but unfortunately the game ended 2.1 to Watford Ladies FC.

Mick Mulhern "We struggled with the hot conditions in the first half and never really got going. The second half was much better from our point of view. We created some decent opportunities and I still can't believe we left Watford with nothing from the Game."