Albion Women Manager Siobhan Hodgetts-Still insists her side “grafted” despite their Birmingham County FA Challenge Cup semi-final defeat on Wednesday night.
The Baggies had their Challenge Cup semi-final run halted by a duo of Wolves set-piece strikes, despite a resolute showing at the Alexander Stadium.
Though the defeat leaves them in need of a lift ahead of Sunday’s showdown with Sporting Khalsa at The Hawthorns - the boss believes everyone can “take the positives” as they look towards a return to league action.
She said: “Despite the defeat, I’m proud of everyone’s performance. It’s not the result we wanted, we wanted to be getting into the final.
“Performance-wise, the girls defended brilliantly and we made it difficult for Wolves to break us down. The goals came from two corners where I think 90% of the time, we defended the corners well - but they go and score those two in a row.
“It’s disappointing but I think we can go back and work on those in training. We can be really proud of the performance and take loads of positivity going into Sunday.
“We talked about the corners at the end. We grafted really well and limited those chances.
“To switch off on those corners, both corners, players were free in the box so we need to be better there. The staff will go away and have a look at that, we know we need to put that into Friday and quickly fix that.
“Another game always comes quickly, which is always a positive. The girls are off tomorrow and in on Friday, defensively we can take the positives and may need to work on a few things on the ball, but we’re looking forward to playing at The Hawthorns on Sunday.”
Captain Liv Rabjohn says there was little “difference” between the two sides in Perry Barr on Wednesday, and that they “came close” to making the game a contrasting one to its end result.
The skipper said: “The girls grafted until the end. We didn’t get cut open and just switched off for two corners, that was the difference tonight.
“It’s disappointed but definitely something we’ll get back to training and work on. It’s hard to take, especially knowing how close we came with some of the chances we created.
“We were really positive going forwards, especially in the first half, we felt there were chances there for us to score and unfortunately we couldn’t make the most of that. To concede two relatively easy fixes was difficult for us but we’ll look at it again and go again next time.
“We love playing at The Hawthorns, it should be a really good game. It’ll be a good test for us and we really look forward to those matches - we always want to play there when we can.”
