Women | Monet Legall: We powered through!
Cardiff City FC Women manager Joel Hutton revealed his thoughts, following the Bluebirds’ emphatic 11-1 victory over Tredegar Girls AFC in Round One of the FAW Women’s Cup at Ebbw Vale Sports Centre.
City scored five first-half goals, courtesy of strikes from Danielle Green, Monet Legall, Eryn Gibbs and a Hannah Daley brace. Then the visitors went one better in the second period, securing an additional six goals, thanks to Daisy Connolly, Lisa Owen, Kanisha Underdown, Green’s second and Alana Murphy’s double.
“I was a little bit disappointed with the first-half, to be honest,” began Joel. “The message in the dressing room before the game was that, no matter who we play against, we dictate the game by keeping quality possession of the football and we didn’t do that - that’s why the two changes were made at half-time.
“We caused ourselves problems by not looking after the ball properly and when Tredegar did get their goal, their tails were up. Without being disrespectful to them, they had nothing to lose today and going into half-time at 5-1, it might sound ultra-critical, but I wasn’t happy with certain players not looking after the ball properly.
“I didn’t expect us to score 11 goals before the game. They are a couple of divisions below us, but with the way we played in the first half, you wouldn’t have thought that.”
16-year-old Eryn Gibbs and 17-year-old Daisy Connolly played 90 minutes and scored their first respective goals of the 2018/19 season. Hutton concluded: “Daisy’s [Connolly] been with us for a few years now and suffered with a few injuries last year, so it’s great to get her back in the team. I think she played excellent today. Eryn Gibbs has just joined us, so it’s about getting her match minutes and it was terrific to give her 90 minutes today. I think she took her goal really well.”
Forward Monet Legall scored her opening goal of the current campaign, finishing from Lucy McDonough’s terrific assist and the 19-year-old reflected on the match, her strike and the end result, adding: “It was a very slow first-half and even though we were 5-1 up at half-time, it could have been better.
"In the second-half we came out all guns blazing, knew we wanted to win and I’m happy with the end result."
Monet concluded: “I’m buzzing to score my first goal of the season, because I picked myself up after missing other opportunities and was rewarded.
"As a whole, all the goals we scored today were good and we played well as a team too. When the score was at 1-1, we didn’t give up and powered through – the end result of 11-1 obviously shows that.”
