Women | Joel Hutton: A fantastic team performance
Cardiff City FC Women manager Joel Hutton revealed his thoughts at Llandarcy Academy of Sport, following the Bluebirds’ 0-0 draw with Swansea City Ladies in the Welsh Premier Women’s League on Sunday afternoon.
In a game of little opportunities, there was a tense conclusion with the hosts having a goal ruled out for offside and City being denied a penalty, before the sides shared the spoils.
“It was a fantastic performance from the girls,” began Joel following the final whistle. “They took what we worked on in training and executed the game plan and we knew we weren’t going to compete with Swansea in terms of chances created, so we had to try and nullify their options.
“We wanted to try to catch them on the break and that’s why we played Catherine Walsh in a position to hold the ball up, so that Danielle Green could get in behind and the same with Lucy McDonough when she came on. We didn’t create as much as we could’ve on the break and the number of bodies in midfield made it difficult for our central players to get the ball into the area.
“Without the ball, we were absolutely terrific and that’s testament to the girls. We specifically asked Alana Murphy to prevent Ellie Lake from causing problems in the middle of the park and she did a brilliant job. Kanisha-Mae Underdown, Danielle Broadhurst and Kelly Bourne were asked to mark their two No. 10’s and they did well too.
“Ultimately, we didn’t concede and took a strong point. Everybody stood out and were terrific because it was a team performance at the end of the day.”
The result means that the Bluebirds remain level on points with the Swans and are now eight points behind leaders Cardiff Met, going into the final seven WPWL fixtures of the season and Joel concluded: “As I’ve said before: we need to be taking points off the teams around us and we’re level on points with Swansea, going into the Briton Ferry game. It’s about chalking games off, one at a time and we weren’t looking past the Swans match, so I’m extremely happy with what we’ve got out of it because it’s something that we haven’t had for a long time.”
