After getting off to the right start via a Denise Fortin (38') strike, FC London dropped off in their Matchweek Seven fixture against North Miss Panthers when Jenny Wolever (45') and Oshay Lawes (54') scored within ten minutes of each other.

But the defending champions are not ones to drop points at home, and it was 2016 Golden Boot holder Jade Kovacevic (83') that popped up with the equalizer minutes from regular time to earn the home side a point. 

"We were missing a number of key players, but that's not an excuse," said North Miss assistant coach, Trevor Bertrand. "Basically we expect our team to follow instructions, and we assigned them to play number nine out of the game and allow the other players to play, but they strayed, gave her space to turn - and that's it."

North Miss had done a great job in keeping Kovacevic out of the match for much of the proceedings, but as London head coach Mike Marcoccia said - the striker is used to being closely marked and only needs one chance.

"We expect everyone to man-mark her," he said. "She is the top player in this league and that's expected when we play anybody."

"With that being said, the game is ninety minutes and Jade scored. They were going to walk away with a win and Jade kept going and going and going before she scored the tying goal. They did not keep her off the score sheet so they didn't really do the job they set out to do."

"Other than that, we have tonnes of other attacking players and we need to generate more attacking form from them. Jade needs to do some things better too, and there is no question that all of our attacking outlets need to do some things a bit better in certain moments. For the most part though, we still generated attacking chances and hit two posts in first half, so that changes the game but no excuses."

North Miss activated a high press on FC London as they attempted their signature build-up play, and were successful for much of the match. Marcoccia said it is a risk the team is committed to taking.

"It all goes back to how we are trying to play," he said. "We are trying to play in a way where we build out from the back and it's a high-risk game. The more chances you take, the more mistakes you are likely to make."

"I think that any game when we try to play like this, we're going to make mistakes and they did a really good job of trying to press us and making way with those mistakes," he added.  

"They punished us at times, and it was just indicative of how we were trying to play. However we trust our playing style and we made a few small adjustments on how we were building up, but I think if you look at the last twenty minutes I think we got back to how we were trying to play."

North Mississauga Panthers will next play West Ottawa SC on June 17 at Hershey Centre, Mississauga. 

FC London will next play Vaughan Azzurri on June 17 at German Canadian Stadium, London.