Women | Joel Hutton: “We were clinical!”
Cardiff City FC Women manager Joel Hutton revealed his delight at Pen-Y-Pound Stadium, following the Bluebirds’ 2-0 victory over Abergavenny Women in the Welsh Premier Women’s League.
The Bluebirds got off to a swift start, with Alana Murphy breaking the deadlock after eight minutes – getting on the end of Mollie Jones’ long ball and firing home. Then 14 minutes later, Catherine Walsh doubled City’s advantage and scored the final goal of the affair, finishing off Charlotte Hastings’ parry from Danielle Broadhurst’s powerful effort.
“I was really impressed with the performance today,” began Hutton. “I thought the girls did everything that we asked them to do; competed well and won the first ball, which is something that we didn’t do particularly well last week, so they’ve addressed that well this week.
“If we’d had one or two more goals, I would’ve been a little bit more satisfied, because even late-on I felt that the job wasn’t done and if they’d grabbed a late goal, I think it probably would’ve been a different end to the game than what we saw. Although, the girls played really well overall.
“We were clinical with the goals we took and we did ride our luck a little bit, but I suppose you need some of that now and again and thankfully, the luck went our way. To be honest, I would’ve taken a point before a ball was kicked, but it was a massive result for us and it feels nice to move up to fourth in the league. We’ve said all the way along that when you’re playing against the likes of Abergavenny, Swansea, Cardiff Met, Cyncoed and Port Talbot, you’ve got to be taking points off them.
“I thought the back three were absolutely outstanding and I just think that they’ve grown into the system. The two wide centre backs were going man for man and that allowed Siobhan Walsh to mop up anything that came through and that’s what she’s good at. Siobhan reads the game really well and she’ll always look to attack that first ball, which is vitally important."
He concluded: “Danielle Broadhurst was excellent in the No. 10 position and she worked really hard. We were asking two players to play in slightly different roles and before the game we had two pull out because of illness, so we had to change our starting line-up and the players that stepped in performed really well.”
Experienced midfielder Danielle Broadhurst had a major influence on the match, making an impact at every opportunity and the 26-year-old added: “We worked really hard as a team, fought right until the end and we’re really chuffed with the result. They had a few good chances, but we just dug deep, defended really well and the back three were superb all game. We just kept fighting, took our chances and we didn’t have as many opportunities as them, but the luck went our way.
“For Catherine’s [Walsh] goal, if I’d got to the ball a bit faster, I might’ve been able to finish it myself, but she finished it off and that was good. We’re up to fourth now and have a game in hand over the teams above us, so it’s going well.”
