It’s very hard to stop a shot that’s dropping like a stone from the heavens, destination over the line. The force of gravity, the element of surprise, the belief that the corner taker’s two hands, raised to the sky, indicates her intention to deliver the ball to her teammates – these were all against Leeds United. What if they’d known Lauren Robson’s ball was headed straight for the net? Well, they’d have packed the goal line, probably. But if Robson hardly knew it, then what chance did the Whites have of halting the dart-like unknown?

Leeds United’s Division One North game away at Middlesbrough didn’t look like the kind of game in which one side would take the lead within five minutes. A polite affair, with the teams letting each other have a turn at playing football. But that’s the beauty of a stupid bit of magic like Robson’s. It’s the sort of thing that makes sport worth turning up for every weekend ad infinitum.

Katie McCabe scored something similar at last summer’s World Cup, the first tournament of its kind at which the Republic of Ireland has competed. The Girls in Green didn’t have much luck, failing to qualify from Group B with two defeats and a goalless draw, but McCabe’s Olimpico, scored in the fourth minute against Olympic champions Canada, had her compatriots believing for a while. It remains the only goal Ireland have scored at a World Cup finals, a stunning little anomaly for McCabe to keep in her locket, a footnote on her Wikipedia page forever.

Robson’s opener wasn’t so deeply memorable, but it could be a defining moment in the seasons of both Boro and United. Last week the Teessiders blitzed their 2024 opener, holding back fellow title chasers Hull City with a 2-0 win, and now in just three minutes they’d knocked another team hopeful of winning promotion. Meanwhile, here was Leeds’ chance to show again that they could convert desire into results, even when the chips are down.

I played a match against Ilkley Town, the league leaders of the West Riding Division 1, on Sunday. It was likely to be a struggle, we were likely to concede goals, so before kick off, our new coach told us he’d much rather we were one or two down at half-time than at full-time. He’s right – going behind isn’t fatal. Leeds learned this last week against Doncaster Rovers Belles when, after turning a 2-1 defeat into a 4-2 victory, United’s captain-turned-coach Rebekah Bass noted that the sort of desire which inspired the turnaround wasn’t always evident in their previous season.

But on Sunday, Leeds wanted it again, and Jess Rousseau kept her place at the top of the Division One North goalscoring charts by levelling midway through the first half. It was a fun goal. Sarah Danby sent Charlyann Pizzarello on her bicycle to the byline, where a simple tickle of the corridor of uncertainty was enough to put a weak clearance into Rousseau’s feet, and she was never going to miss from seven yards.

Twenty-one minutes had passed, and Leeds had already done better than the last time they met Boro, when the Reds’ first-half goal decided their first defeat of the season, back in September. As a spectator, it’s exciting when both teams are off the mark early in the game. Once they’ve each scored once, you get the sense they could each do it any number of times. But on Sunday, it quickly became apparent that this wasn’t going to be December 2019 at St Andrew’s. Two goalline clearances and a handful of not-unreasonable penalty shouts later, Leeds were holding on at 1-1 but, despite growing into the game, the chances at goal they needed to take the lead or protect themselves from a second Robson Olimpico didn’t materialise.

Were Boro effectively stopping Leeds’ plan, or was Leeds’ plan unclear? Simon Wood’s players had plenty of the ball, but few ideas. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe that United could score – I’d seen it happen, already – but I couldn’t imagine what it would look like.

Mentally playing the game from the comfort of your sofa is easy. It’s what makes football fans so intolerable, sometimes. Why didn’t Trent deliver the reality-bending assist that I spotted easily, from 150 miles away, with my birds-eye view of the pitch, under all the pressure of my dog watching me curiously as I froth at the mouth with rage in an otherwise empty room, something I could have made happen with just the flick of my thumb on the circle button, if only someone passed me the controller? Unthinkable.

Yes, picking a pass in front of the TV should be straightforward, but watching from home, with the help of a pause and rewind, I couldn’t pick the passes Leeds had needed on Sunday afternoon.

I couldn’t easily pick my own for Hyde Park against Ilkley, either. Problem being, every other team in our league pales next to them, so I’ve got far too used to a half-arsed strolling press allowing me to receive the ball before deciding what to do with it next. Against shit teams, the skill of individuals can get you most of the way, but as soon as you’re up against a side with something about them, you need to have a plan in place.

Against Ilkley on Sunday, we could forgive ourselves for a bit of a lost sheep performance since we’re just finding our rhythm under a new coach after we unhelpfully lost one midway through the season. It’s been a while since I felt the thrill of mindlessly moving the ball around, so confident of where it’s going next that you hardly have to tell your feet what to do as you help to form a well-drilled machine of moving parts, each knowing their role to a tee. I miss it.

I saw that same longing in Olivia Smart, who pulsed with frustration when a simple pass on the right flank was turned down for a long hoof to no one in the wake of Boro’s second goal. It was the same desire that prompted Ellie Dobson to storm in and welly it, which had given the hosts the lead as Ellie Mett refused to let a half-chance go begging, racing between Leeds’ centre-backs and gambling on reaching the loose ball before Abi Megeary’s gloves.

You could say the same of Boro’s third goal. What are fouls if not misplaced desire? Just as Lucy Turner was desperate not to let Nichole Havery near the ball, Megeary’s wish to stop United trailing by two sent Sarah Burn tumbling to the floor. In the end, the referee was spoilt for reasons to point to the spot.

With limited chances, Boro hadn’t shown up with a blueprint for the ages, either, and it was only under slight pressure by the home side that United surrendered all three points, leaving them at the bottom of the top half of the table, nine points and five teams behind first place. The hope of catching up is slim. Out of the FA Cup and the League Cup, it’s not the first time that Division One North’s criminal single promotion spot has as good as condemned Leeds’ season long before the finish line. Smart is used to it by now, but Jess Rousseau might not be, and the wait for higher-level football has already got too much for Catherine Hamill and Danielle Whitham, former Leeds protagonists who have left to compete in tier three.

At this level, planning for comings and goings isn’t easy. No one’s under contract, while loyalty and length of service is no guarantee of sustained commitment. As a football manager hoping to keep hold of players, all you can do is look after them, make sure they’re enjoying football.

Speaking after their win, Boro manager Michael Mulhern remarked how his side were transformed. “See how far we’ve gone this season,” he said, “how far we’ve progressed from last year’s team, which has completely changed from the team that was a point above relegation. We’re a force this season.”

One of the reasons why Boro look a changed side is that they hoovered up all of last year’s promotion-winners that Newcastle United didn’t want, including Olimpico merchant Robson, after a huge squad of all the best players needed trimming and rejuvenating in the name of taking the league above by storm, too. Geographical good fortune, perhaps, but those players knew something of Boro’s set-up and liked it enough to commit to joining after they were booted out by the wealthy Tyneside upstarts.

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It’s fine to be a team in transition. Last term, United were transitioning from being a good side to a brilliant one and it was the most fun anyone’s had in ages. But that sense of ‘almost there’ can’t go on forever. When the departure of Rick Passmoor stopped Leeds’ evolution in its tracks, the club promised that “an announcement on a permanent appointment will follow in due course”. Simon Wood, the women’s academy coach who picked up the baton which Passmoor suddenly dropped, looks increasingly ‘permanent’ but there’s been no announcement. Five months on, United’s focus turns to keeping and attracting the players and coaches they need to get it over the line, next time; planning for the 2024/25 campaign should be starting now. ⬢