Following Aberdeen Women’s impressive 0-0 draw on the road with Hibernian, Academy Director Gavin Levey took time to reflect on a hard earned point.
“We’re really happy with the result. Hibs are a good team; they are 5th in the league so it’s always going to be tough coming down here and I think the girls have thoroughly earned that point away from home. Without a doubt, there was some issues we had to address. It’s never nice to see it back but we’ve had to work through some clips of previous games and talk about ways we can improve individually. It was nice for us to get in at half-time when you’ve defended set plays like we defended. We then had to go and do it for the full 90 which is difficult with the quality that Hibs have in the side, but we managed to go right to the very end. I thought our young team competed so well tonight, the number of blocks and tackles we got in was brilliant. We made some real improvements defensively tonight, the girls deserve everything that they got from that, and they know it.
“You go into every game wanting to win it, and before the game tonight if you asked us what we wanted from the game it would have been the three points. At the same time, you recognise signs in the game that make you realise that despite wanting to win the match you know the last ten minutes when everyone is fatigued and Hibs have quality coming off the bench, you know a point is going to be really important. I’ve seen it in the girls’ eyes tonight, when they are all standing together on the pitch at full time, they know what they’ve achieved tonight. We can’t get carried away, we’ve got to go and take care of another away game on Sunday in Glasgow against Partick Thistle, but the clean sheet is something for us to build on.”
Before kicking off on Wednesday, AFCW announced the signing of India Marwaha, with the 19-year-old goalie joining on loan from Celtic. India was on the bench for the draw with Hibernian.
“We’ve worked hard to get a goalkeeper in the door during this window, and I would like to thank Celtic, I’ve been speaking to Fran Alonso a lot recently, he is an experienced manager, and he has a young player that he wants to get out and experience something different. I think Tuesday was the loan window deadline, and we had to make sure we got someone in, and we are really pleased with who we’ve got in. We thank India for making that commitment to us.”
The Dons are back on the road this Sunday when they take on Partick Thistle at Petershill Park.
“It’s another big test on Sunday. The fact that we defended as well as we did tonight is something we have to take into the game on Sunday. We have to take real confidence from it, and if we can start finding ways where we can start converting some of these chances we are creating, that’s what we want to do. It’s the basics of football, stop goals at one end and try and score at the other end. We’ve improved in one area, so now on Sunday we need to improve at the other end.”
Match: Partick Thistle Women v Aberdeen Women Venue: Petershill Park Competition: SWPL1 Kick-off: 1pm Date: Sunday 5th March
