Albion Women Manager Siobhan Hodgetts-Still insists her side “deserved more” from their clash with Rugby Borough on Wednesday evening.
The Baggies were downed by three first-half strikes from their FA WNL Northern Premier division opponents. Ellie May pulled one back at the start of the second 45, but the visitors were unable to add any further goals and left with nothing to show for their efforts.
Hodgetts-Still was pleased with many aspects of the performance at Kilsby Lane despite the frustrating scoreline, and hopes the players can take those forward into their next league fixture against Middlesbrough on Sunday (November 2).
She said: “It’s not the result that we wanted. We wanted to come here today and get some points and I thought we deserved some today.
“In terms of the performance, I’m proud of it and the shift the players put in. That said, if we don't defend properly, we get punished.
“That was it tonight, three set-pieces and they’ve scored three times. They were very dominant in the box, they wanted to attack the first ball every time.
“We’ve got to be better and it’s definitely something that we’ll work on. I thought we fixed a few things in the second half and we were better.
“If we don’t defend properly, 3-0 is a big scoreline to come back from, but I thought we gave it a good go. The half-time team talk was positive because I didn’t feel we deserved to be three-nil down.
“There were some really good moments in the first half. We could’ve dropped our heads in the second half and let it become four, five, six nil but we didn’t.
“In the second half we were excellent. We were on the front foot, pressing, and we caused them problems. If we were better in their box, we could have got the second or the third. Today the game was won because they were better in the box.
“There were loads of positives today and I’m really proud of them. We’ll get back into training and if we go into Middlesbrough with the same intensity and same mindset, I’m confident we’ll get some points.”
Captain Olivia Rabjohn agreed with her manager, and says the Baggies were “brilliant” in several areas of their game in Warwickshire.
“We deserved a lot more from that performance,” Rabjohn said. “I think three little mistakes we've made have cost us the game really, but I thought in-possession and out-of-possession from box-to-box we were brilliant.
“We have to take this forward with us. I genuinely think we were on it to go and get those goals, it just came down to small decisions.
“Everyone’s taken the responsibility for the mistakes, we just have to learn and move on.
“We played Middlesbrough, or next opponents, last season and they’re a good team. It’s another good test and a chance to bounce back and carry on our league performances.”
