Albion Women Interim Head Coach Charlie Fripp believes his side “reaped the rewards” of their hard work in recent weeks against Peterborough United on Sunday.
The Baggies ran out 3-1 winners at the Valley Stadium, with Phoebe Hollin, Riya Mannu and Rhianne Rush on the scoresheet for the hosts.
After succumbing to two consecutive FAWNL Northern Premier defeats, the interim boss was delighted to see his side put away three of their goalscoring opportunities.
He said: “I’m elated with that showing; I really am. The girls worked incredibly hard, they stuck to the gameplan like we said, and we’ve reaped the rewards.
“To score three open-play goals, it’s brilliant. They’ve been so positive and open to what we want to do; they’ve been so switched on, and they worked so hard as a team. I’m really pleased for everyone.
“We owed ourselves some goals, and we got them today. The last two performances have seen lots of chances, and today the girls found the net, so we’re delighted we managed to do that. We’re going to build on this. The group will go far, and we look forward to seeing them move on from this.
“Peterborough are a really good team, they’re drilled very well and have played some really good football this season. It was a difficult challenge, and we knew as a group we owed a promising showing, which showed us putting our stamp on things.
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and it does help us to keep building. We’ve got a lot to build from, and we can look to get better from today. The league is tough, but I know this group have what it takes to grow.”
Mannu notched a goal and an assist in her third appearance since rejoining the club on a permanent deal from Birmingham City in the summer - she said that result has been “coming.”
She said: “It was coming, to be honest. Our performances have grown a lot over the last few weeks, and we’ve been working hard in training. It was just about the final-third element.
“We didn’t quite click in the first half, and there were a few poor decisions from me. We came out in the second half really aggressive and got the three points from there.
“At half-time, Charlie said to keep knocking on the door, keep showing what we’d worked on during training, and to keep running in-behind - we did that as much as we could.
“Eventually it was going to click. We had a great pre-season, but at the end of the day, to win football matches, we need to score goals. Once we got the first, it was all about the belief, and we managed to get better from there.”
