Despite tasting defeat in a hard-fought encounter with Crusaders Strikers at Inver on Friday evening, only a single goal separated the sides at full time, as the Inver Women continued to display the progress that has typified this season’s campaign – frustrating the North Belfast powerhouse for long spells of the match.
Speaking to Kyle McClure post-match, Larne’s No. 8 Morgan Hanna reflects on the result.
KM: Morgan, a narrow defeat at home, what did you make of that performance?
MH: Obviously it’s never great to be defeated home or away, but the team fought hard tonight. I thought they all put in a great effort, and we were unlucky to not come away with a win.
KM: This is a side that previously beat us 4-0 away, I guess this shows great progress within the squad?
MH: Week in and week out in training, playing matches, we’re learning from our mistakes. Using each one of our mistakes to better ourselves and we’re becoming a better team from each of these matches.
KM: You and the team held your own for most of the match, but it seems one moment of quality from Crusaders was the difference.
MH: We were very lucky with that goal, I think it was just a bit of miscommunication on our part, just switching off for a spell, and they took advantage of it. We’ll learn from that and come back stronger next time we play.
KM: For most of the match, we seemed to be firing on all cylinders giving it everything they got, you’d say that this shows the strength in our strikers?
MH: Obviously we’ve got Hollie Johnston up there, she was unlucky to not come away with a goal, spending a good chunk of the match running into their box. Every one of our strikers is working hard.
KM: We now face top opposition again, facing Linfield Women, what’s your expectations going into that?
MH: I wasn’t in the squad last time for the Linfield game, but from watching it and knowing the squad, it’ll be a tough game from losing last time, we’ve progressed our game throughout the season. We’ll go out and batter as hard as we can.
The Inver Reds travel to Midgley Park to face Linfield Women on 6th September 7:45pm.
