Adran Premier Preview | Swansea City vs. Cardiff City
Cardiff City Women begin Phase Two of the Adran Premier with a trip to Swansea City Ladies’ Llandarcy Academy of Sport on Sunday afternoon (2pm KO).
The Bluebirds head into the fixture on the back of booking a place in the Final of the FAW Women’s Cup with a 2-0 victory over Cardiff Metropolitan University, in which striker Rhianne Oakley netted a fine brace.
Iain Darbyshire’s side had a remarkable Phase One campaign, currently sitting at the top of the table with 38 points, having won 12 of the opening 14 fixtures.
In the final game of Phase One, City claimed a convincing 5-1 win at The New Saints, with a notable goalscoring return for Catherine Walsh.
Opponents Swansea City Ladies are currently second in the table, seven points behind the Bluebirds.
In their last outing, the Swans claimed a 5-2 win over The New Saints, with Katy Hosford netting and recording two assists.
The reverse fixture at the Swansea.com Stadium ended in a 1-1 draw, with Hosford’s opener being cancelled out by Phoebie Poole’s brilliant strike.
“We’re very excited to play in another South Wales derby.” said Head Coach Darbyshire. “It’s always the fixture that you look out for in the calendar. We know it’s going to be one of the toughest games of Phase Two, but we’re glad it’s coming up first. They’re a good side, they’ve had some good results recently and they have to win. We’re in a very good position, but we’ll be going there to win, we’ll go there and attack them and we believe we can get a positive result.
“We had a difficult game against them in the Swansea.com Stadium. I think it was even for large parts, but either team could have edged it. We know this is going to be more difficult for us to play our football on a tight pitch at Llandarcy. It’s a different type of challenge, but we’re in a good run of form and we believe we can come away with three points.”
Midfielder Seren Watkins put in a fantastic display last time out against Cardiff Metropolitan University, recording a fine assist for Oakley’s opener.
Ahead of this weekend, the talented midfielder added: “We can’t wait. We’re all training really well and we know we can beat them, because we’ve done it in the past. We’ve just got to out there, give it our all and hopefully, we can get the three points.
“We’ve played them away already this season and we got a draw. It was a tough match; we’ve looked at that and we know where we need to improve to get all three points. Now, it’s just about putting it into play on Sunday.”
