Queens Park Rangers Ladies: 1 Yeovil Town Ladies: 1

LAURA Bray powered in her sixth goal of the season at Queen Park Rangers on Sunday, but her Yeovil Town Ladies team were unable to hold their advantage, having to settle for a 1-1 draw in the FA Women’s Premier league Cup. Victory would have seen the girls through to the knock out stages of the competition, but they now need to beat Portsmouth Ladies in their final group game to progress.

“With the weather we had on Sunday morning I thought the game would be in doubt,” Joint manager Nigel Williams said this morning. “Thankfully a call at around nine o’clock said the pitch was good, and on arrival it was perfect for a great game of football.”

Moving onto the game itself Williams was not happy with what he had seen on the pitch.

“I was disappointed this week with the result of this game,” he said. “It is now time to say that it is not good enough to give away games at this level, and that is what we did this weekend. We created chances, we won the ball when we needed too, we passed the ball well on a surface that allowed us to play the game the way we know we can, yet we came away from the game feeling as if we have lost it.

“I am not prepared to accept results like this when we really should have come away with all the points, and be in the next phase of the league cup. Now we have left ourselves a task to get a result at Portsmouth. I have a lot of pride in my team and I want the best from them week in week out. Sarah (Joint manager Sarah Lawler) and I make no apology that we want more from our team. We want more passion, more effort and more clinical finishing, all of which we know they can produce.

“We see it week in week out on the training pitch. I am not saying we did not play well. I am saying that we were not clinical enough in seeing out the game when we had it won. The team need to get this bit of their game developed, and it needs a bit of intelligent thinking on the players’ part. With seven minutes to go we had the game in the bag. We gave away a free kick. QPR delivered a good cross and it dropped to the edge of the box for a player to strike.

“In the game we had good attacks down the left, with Stacey Pearson putting in a good shift beating the right back of QPR on numerous occasions. Our Player of the Game was Laura Wensley. She broke up play and had three tremendous strikes on goal in the first half, one of which was brilliantly saved by the QPR ‘keeper. 

"Our back four performed well, not giving QPR the chance to score throughout the game. I could go on and on about the good things we were doing throughout the game, but the point was what we needed to score more, and only got one goal; disappointing.”

William concluded. “I can say this; you can see how far we have come with this team because expectation is higher than it has ever been. Sarah and I will expect nothing less that total commitment for what we are striving to achieve at this club. Our plan has not changed from the time we took charge of this team, and that is a search for excellence to make Yeovil Town Ladies the best. Our players would expect nothing else from us because I know they want the same. Next week is away to Millwall, and the training pitch this week will be one of hard work and effort.”

Yeovil Town Ladies:Howard, Grogen, (Keehan – 43), Hannam, Edwards, Brazell, Pearson, Wensley, Radburn, Sage, Rapp (Cornwall – 65), Bray

Goalscorer:Laura Bray (46)

Referee:Dele Sotimirin (London)

Next Match:Away to Millwall Lionesses – 11 November 2012

Nigel Williams was talking to Ali King