Mel Reay has previewed SAFC Women’s third Barclays Women’s Championship match of the season, as the Lasses travel to the Robins High Performance Centre to face Bristol City Women.
The Women’s Head Coach reviewed the season’s events so far, as well as Sunday’s strong opposition.
“We’ve just got to stay focused on what we want to try and do," she said.
“When you look at it, we’ve had two tough games and that becomes three on Sunday.
“We did really well against Durham and then dipped against Birmingham, so we want to try and get some consistency going in this block of games.
“There’s always going to be ups and downs but we know what we’re capable of when we turn up all over the pitch. When we’re switched on in and out of possession, we normally get points.
“We need to make sure we’re at it on Sunday because we know it’s going to be a tough game.
“They were up there last season. They beat us in the away game but we took points off them at Hetton.
“They’ve started well, but we’ll go with a plan to try and take some points off them.”
With three weeks since the last game – a tough defeat against Birmingham City at the Stadium of Light – Reay discussed the challenges of coping with such a long break in between games.
“It’s always hard, you want momentum and especially the way we felt after the Birmingham game, we wanted to get back out there quickly,” the Lasses boss said.
“But it has given us time to reflect, and we’re eager to get back out there on Sunday.
“We’ve learned quite a bit off last season in terms of having these gaps in the calendar, we tried different ways to keep them ticking over and to be honest, I don’t think we got it quite right.
“We haven’t had much time off. They’ve been training hard. We’ve been playing 11-v-11 on a Sunday to try and keep that routine going.”
Finally, with the re-introduction of Keira Ramshaw and Neve Herron back into the squad for the weekend, Reay highlighted their impact, as well as Herron’s rehabilitation.
“Keira Ramshaw and Neve Herron will go back into the squad, which is a big positive for us.
“Neve was a strong player for us last year.
“You have got to be careful with a broken foot not to bring someone back too early but she’s hit all her milestones, the doctor is happy and she’s trained really well all week, so she’s really eager to get out onto the pitch on Sunday.
“We have had a bit of COVID in the camp over the break but we expect everyone to be available.”